766 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[March 29, 1873. 
Good bread ought not to contain more than 38 per cent, 
of water, and should burn to a very minute ash when 
heated on platinum foil. 
Flour ( Wheaten).—Adulterants and Impurities. Rice, 
barley, dari, bean-flour, “cones” flour, Indian corn, rye, 
potatoes, alum, gypsum, clay, ergot, darnel. Good Flour 
should not be acid or musty, but ought to have a pleasant 
flavour. When a small quantity is burnt on platinum- 
foil (see Cocoa) a scarcely perceptible residue of mineral 
matter should remain. As flour containing ergot is poison¬ 
ous, it is a matter of importance to be able to distinguish 
this dangerous product of disease in the wheat. We can 
accomplish this easily by shaking up the suspected flour 
with a mixture of one part of chloroform and six parts of 
strong spirit of wine. The ergot, if present in the flour, 
will float on the liquid and form a brown scum. 
Arrowroot (West Indian). — Adulterants. Potato- 
starch, sago-meal, rice, gypsum, china clay, chalk. 
Genuine Maranta Arrowroot is a dull white powder, 
which crackles strongly and in a peculiar manner when 
pressed between the fingers. When mixed with twice its 
weight of strong hydrochloric acid, it yields an opaque 
jelly. Potato-starch, under similar circumstances, affords 
a transparent jelly. When burnt on platinum-foil, arrow- 
root should leave a scarcely perceptible residue if unadul¬ 
terated with mineral powders. A fragment of iodine 
placed on a warm plate near to the sample, colours 
Maranta arrowroot chocolate brown, sago-starch yellowish, 
wheaten starch violet, and potato-starch a dull lilac 
colour. 
Meat. — Beef: Mutton. Good meat should possess the 
following easily observed characters. 1. It ought to be 
of a full, slightly brownish, red colour ; neither of a pale 
pink tint on the one hand, nor of a deep purple hue on 
the other. If pink, disease is indicated ; and if purple, 
the animal has probably not been slaughtered, but has 
died with the blood in it, or has suffered from acute fever. 
2. It should have a marbled appearance, from the ramifi¬ 
cations of little veins of fat among the muscles. 3. It 
should be firm, and elastic to the touch, and should 
scarcely moisten the fingers. Bad meat is usually wet, 
sodden, and flabby, with the fat looking like jelly or wet 
parchment. 4. It should have little or no odour, and not 
disagreeable ; for diseased meat has a sickly cadaverous 
smell. Any disagreeable odour is most easily detected 
when the meat is chopped up and drenched with warm 
water. 5. It should not shrink or waste much in cooking. 
6. It should not become very soft and wet on standing for 
a day or so, but should, on the contrary, dry on the surface 
(Letheby).— Pork,ii unsalted, should present the characters 
above stated ; but the colour of the meat, if sound, is of 
very pale red tint. When infested by the dangerous 
parasite, trichina spiralis, the meat is usually of a dark 
colour. Unfortunately, the animal itself can scarcely be 
detected by the unaided eye ; not so the cysticercus, or 
measle, whose little sac is often as large as a hempseed, 
and can be easily seen.— Sausages are liable to partial de¬ 
composition, and then become poisonous, from whatever 
kind of meat they may have been prepared. Good 
sausage-meat should be firm, not moist, gelatinous, and 
vesicular. It should be free from disagreeable smell and 
taste, and from acidity. —Poultry. It is unnecessary to 
say more under this head, than to point out that this class 
of meat should fulfil the conditions 4, 5, and 6, given 
above. —Fish should only be used when fresh, and this 
condition can be easily ascertained. Fresh fish is free 
from offensive smell, and the flesh is not soft or gelatinous. 
It may be well to mention that fresh salmon or trout 
should not only have the well-known pink-coloured flesh, 
but, when the finger is drawn quickly and firmly across 
the fish, the depression so caused ought to fill up quickly, 
find a corresponding elevation or ridge soon appear. Sea- 
ash is not tested in this way, but the rigidity of the fish 
is sufficient to indicate its fresh condition. The bright red 
colour of fish-gills is a sign of very little importance, as 
the gills are often artificially tinted. 
Isinglass. — Adulterants. Though the best, or Russian 
isinglass, is an unimportant article of food, it may be well 
to mention that it is sometimes adulterated with gelatine 
and with inferior Brazilian isinglass. Genuine Russian 
Isinglass occurs in opaque white filaments, which do not 
become transparent when placed in water, nor do they 
swell to a material extent. Gelatine, on the contrary, 
becomes transparent, and swells considerably. Russian 
isinglass affords a firm, translucent jelly ; the Brazilian 
variety, for corresponding weights of material and water, 
does not afford nearly so firm a jelly, and it is much more 
milky. 
Vegetables and Fruit. —Under this head it is only neces¬ 
sary to say that these articles of food should be invariably 
used in a fresh and ripe condition. It is, however, often 
a matter of importance to be able to distinguish poisonous 
Mushrooms from those that are edible. It may be generally 
stated that mushrooms which have a disagreeable, styptic 
taste and a pungent smell should always be rejected. The 
edible mushroom used in this country has a white top and 
pink gills ; as the fungus grows the gills change to a 
brownish or even nearly black colour. Preserved Fruits r 
etc., should not be eaten if mouldy or in a state of decom¬ 
position, as evidenced by effervescence or slight frothing, 
and an unusually acid taste. All preserves, if made in 
copper vessels, should be tested for copper by stirring a 
thick bright needle for some time through the preserve, 
mixed with a little warm water. If, after stirring and 
standing for an hour or so, the needle, on removal and 
rinsing with water, be free from any of the well-known 
reddish deposit of metallic copper, the preserve cannot 
contain any sensible quantity of the poisonous metal. The 
same test should always be applied to Pickles. 
Vinegar. — Adulterants. Sulphuric acid, and other 
mineral acids, water, “ grains of paradise,” chilies, corro¬ 
sive sublimate (?). Arsenic and copper as accidental 
impurity. Unadulterated Vinegar is allowed by special 
enactment to contain one-thousandth of oil of vitriol. 
When paper moistened with vinegar containing this pro¬ 
portion of sulphuric acid is dried before the fire, no char¬ 
ring takes place until the paper is rather strongly heated; 
but if the proportion of acid be much greater, blackening 
results before the paper seems quite dry. It must be re¬ 
membered that this is but a very rough and indecisive test. 
When a piece of clean and bright copper wire is immersed 
in vinegar, diluted with a little water, and heated nearly 
to boiling in a glass vessel, the copper quickly loses its 
colour and assumes a leaden hue if arsenic or mercury be 
present. Copper may be detected in a fresh sample, 
much diluted with water, by means of the steel needle, as 
described under Preserved Fruits. Pungent substances^ 
“grains of paradise,” for example, may be detected by 
evaporating a quantity of the vinegar nearly to dryness 
in any convenient porcelain vessel. The residue should 
not have a fiery taste. 
Mustard.—A dulterants. Ordinary mustard is rarely free 
from admixture with one or other of the varieties of flour, 
turmeric being added to improve the colour. The addition 
of flour in moderate proportion may be permitted on the 
score of convenience, but turmeric should not be added. 
For flour, china clay, plaster of paris, or chalk have been 
substituted, the colouring material being yellow ochre, or 
even the poisonous chromate of lead. Mustard should not 
become brown when moistened with a little “ spirit of 
hartshorn,” and when burnt on platinum-foil should leave 
but a small quantity of nearly white ash. 
Cayenne Pepper. — Adulterants. Dense flours or starches, 
mustard, turmeric, ochre, vermilion(?), red lead. Cayenne , 
when shaken with cold water, the mixture allowed to 
stand for a minute, and the liquid poured off, should not 
leave any heavy red powder at the bottom of the vessel. It 
ought to leave but little ash when burnt on platinum-foil. 
Cheese. — Adulterants and Impurities. Setting aside 
such colouring matters as annatto, saffron, &c., we find 
that the mineral pigments, Venetian red (red lead ?), are 
used, and various flours or starches to increase weight. 
