Aro'ciober,Pi904'm'}      Salicylic  Acid  in  Food  and  Drink.  477 
solution  is  made  up  in  the  usual  manner,  and  after  cooling  2  c.c.  oil 
of  cassia  per  liter  of  solution  added  and  dissolved  by  agitation. 
No  objections  have  been  noted  to  the  use  of  this  preservative  in 
either  qualitative  or  quantitative  work,  although  the  writer  has  been 
asked,  on  a  few  occasions,  "  Why  our  chlorine  water  smelled  of  cin- 
namon." The  querists  were  using  chlorine  water  in  presence  ot 
the  starch  solution  to  make  tests  for  hydrobromic  and  hydriodic 
acids,  in  which  the  odor  of  chlorine  indicates  when  sufficient  of  this 
reagent  has  been  added. 
ANILINE  COLORS  AND  SALICYLIC  ACID  IN  ARTICLES 
OF  FOOD  AND  DRINK.1 
By  Charles  H.  LaWau,. 
It  would  be  impossible  in  a  paper  like  the  following  to  attempt  to 
give  a  comprehensive  account  of  the  various  methods  used  by 
analytical  chemists  in  examining  the  innumerable  substances  which 
are  brought  to  them  for  investigation,  but  there  are  certain  sub- 
stances whose  presence  in  an  article  of  food  or  drink  absolutely 
brings  it  under  the  ban  as  far  as  the  State  food  law  is  concerned, 
and  the  recognition  and  identification  of  which  is  a  comparatively 
easy  matter,  even  to  one  whose  knowledge  of  analytical  processes 
is  very  slight. 
The  so-called  "  pure  food  crusades,"  which  are  so  frequently 
heralded  by  the  newspapers  and  the  trade  journals,  and  which  are 
made  to  serve  as  the  target  of  many  bad  jokes,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
malignant  attacks  to  which  those  persons  who  are  engaged  in  enforc- 
ing the  laws  are  often  subjected,  are  simply  the  occasional  attempts 
on  the  part  of  the  authorities  of  the  State  to  enforce  laws  which  are 
on  the  statute  books,  and  which  should  be  enforced  all  of  the  time  if 
they  are  to  have  any  salutary  effect  whatever. 
There  is  no  use  in  arguing  the  question  as  to  the  real  harm  in  the 
prohibited  substances,  as  it  is,  after  all,  not  so  much  a  question  of  the 
injury  to  health  as  a  question  of  fraudulently  manipulating  inferior 
products  so  as  to  enable  the  seller  to  obtain  the  price  of  a  much 
higher  class  of  goods. 
1  Read  at  the  twenty-seventh  annual  meeting  of  the  Pennsylvania  Pharma- 
ceutical Association,  June  21-23, 19°4- 
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