ADULTERATIONS OF ALIMENTARY SUBSTANCES. 2S3 
In some cases, applicable only to the healing art, adul- 
terators are, in my opinion, guilty of the crime of voluntary 
homicide, in substituting inert for active products which 
might determine a revulsion by which the patient might be 
saved. We will mention, as an example, the adulteration 
of the farina of mustard with the farina of the cakes arising 
from the manufacture of oil of colza. 
We will leave to men of high merit, and who have 
recently given their opinion concerning commercial frauds, 
and the marques des fabrigues, the task of informing you 
what are the commercial frauds which injure the prosperity 
of our commerce and our industry; we will only make 
known to you that which we have observed relative to the 
sale of alimentary substances, drinks and condiments — sub- 
stances which are indispensable, and to which we wish to 
call your attention. 
The frauds of alimentary substances have been proved 
as follows: — 
1. — Of Flour destined for the preparation of Bread. 
It has been ascertained that the flours sold, as being of 
good quality, were altered, and that they had undergone 
an acid fermentation ; that others were adulterated with 
potato-fecula, others with farina prepared with legumens 
bitten by insects, and which could not be sold without being 
altered in form; powder of alabaster has been mixed with 
flour; the fraud has even been carried to such a point that 
mineral substances, reduced to the state of powder, have 
been offered in the market in the Department of the Seine, 
to be mixed with flour. 
We do not think that the addition of fecula to farina can 
be injurious to health, but it is a robbery on the part of 
the vender against the baker; for fecula introduced into 
farina, and made into bread, as farina is, does not absorb 
water, and does not yield so much bread as farina ; it is a 
