Am.  Jour.  Priarm.  ) 
March..  1907.  J 
The  Food  and  Drugs  Act. 
109 
Since  the  act  has  become  effective  the  products  of  certain  large 
packing  houses,  which  were  formerly  called  potted  ham  or  potted 
tongue  are  now  labeled  "potted  meat,  ham-flavor "  and  "potted 
meat,  tongue-flavor."  The  substance  has  not  been  changed.  It  is 
simply  designated  by  its  right  name  and  all  the  claims  for  purity 
made  by  these  firms  in  the  past  are  now  to  be  judged  by  the  actions 
of  these  same  firms  when  under  compulsion  and  in  fear  of  the  law. 
Several  years  ago  a  well-known  Phiiadelphian  became  sponsor  for 
a  brand  of  coffee  which  was  advertised  and  sold  under  the  caption 
of  "  tannm-free  coffee."  This  purported  to  be  coffee  from  which 
the  poisonous  (?)  tannic  acid  had  been  removed.  Investigation 
showed  it  to  be  coffee  from  which  a  chaff-like  substance  lying  be- 
tween the  segments  of  the  bean  had  been  removed  by  mechanical 
means,  and,  as  this  chaff-like  substance  was  found  to  contain  less 
tannic  acid  than  the  original  coffee,  and,  as  the  statement  as  to  the 
tannic  acid  being  poisonous  was  equally  unwarranted,  it  was  one  of 
the  most  reprehensible  of  the  class  of  what  would  now  be  termed 
misbranded  substances. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  tannic  acid  in  coffee  is  in  such  intimate 
combination  with  the  caffeine  and  other  valuable  constituents  of 
the  bean  that  it  would  be  absolutely  impossible  to  remove  it  with- 
out destroying  the  properties  of  the  coffee  so  that  it  would  be  unrec- 
ognizable. 
The  ultimate  fate  of  this  article,  which  perished  along  with  several 
associated  ventures,  did  not  prove  a  deterrent  to  another  and  still 
more  glaring  fraud  of  a  similar  character  which  has  been  advertised 
during  the  past  year,  i.  e.  a  brand  of  coffee  called  "  Digesto  Coffee  " 
which  claims  to  be  as  harmless  as  the  well-known  cereal  substitutes 
for  this  agreeable  beverage  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  the  poisonous 
(?)  caffeine  and  poisonous  (?)  tannic  acid  have  both  been  removed. 
I  need  scarcely  say  that  such  claims  are  without  the  slightest  foun- 
dation in  fact,  and  an  analysis  recently  made  by  me  of  the  contents 
of  a  package  of  the  article  showed  a  slightly  higher  percentage  of 
caffeine  than  the  average  in  coffee,  and  no  perceptible  diminution 
in  the  amount  of  tannic  acid. 
I  refer  to  both  of  these  instances  specifically,  as  under  all  previous 
laws  it  was  impossible  to  proceed  against  either  of  these  firms, 
while  under  the  new  law  they  are  both  amenable  to  the  section  on 
misbranding. 
