Am.  Jour.  Pharm.1 
October,  1896.  J 
Editorial. 
577 
to  be  pure."  The  fact  is  that  the  better  brands  of  nearly  every  food  are  free 
from  adulteration,  and  usually  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  medium  brands. 
No  cause  has  ever  been  helped  by  exaggeration,  and  that  of  pure  food  has  been 
almost  hopelessly  retarded  by  the  unqualified  assertions  of  those  who  write 
about  it  rather  than  work  in  it,  and  who  well  know  the  public  ear  is  always 
alert  to  hear  about  food  adulteration. 
The  latest  contribution  on  the  subject  of  modern  dietetics  comes  from  a  beef- 
packing  house  in  Chicago.  It  is  in  the  form  of  a  circular,  and  calls  attention 
to  an  article  in  the  Scientific  American  Supplement  on  "Oleomargarine  and 
Wasting  Diseases."  The  author  of  this  contribution  is  an  M.D.,  as  were 
those  of  the  papers  already  commented  upon.  We  learn  from  the  circular 
that  this  doctor  is  a  contributor  to  the  Scientific  American,  "  of  long  standing 
and  of  very  high  reputation."  The  reason  for  the  beef  company  sending  this 
article  broadcast  is  evident.  Why  the  doctor  should  have  written  such  an  arti- 
cle, or  the  Scientific  American  should  have  published  it,  is  not  so  evident, 
although  we  do  not  believe  it  will  be  necessary  to  apply  Roentgen  rays  to  see 
the  cause  without  the  evidence. 
This  paper  states  that  cod- liver  oil  has  nothing  magical  about  it.  "  Save  as 
an  easily  digested  fat,  it  is  valueless."  This  is  hard  on  those  who  are  continu- 
ally calling  attention  to  the  magical  alkaloids  of  cod-liver  oil,  and  throwing 
away  the  fat.  We  are  next  told  that  butter  is  essential  in  every-day  life  and 
its  free  use  is  to  be  encouraged,  "but  unfortunately  an  excess  of  butter  diet, 
even  in  a  healthy  organism,  is  apt  to  give  rise  to  butyric  dyspepsia,  and  butyric 
fermentation  is  set  up  largely  through  the  presence  of  a  ferment — a  residuum 
left  by  the  buttermilk."  Having  now  reached  a  point  where  some  death-deal- 
ing bacilli  are  sure  to  carry  us  off,  we  read  on  with  some  anxiety  and  find  that 
one  means  of  deliverance  has  been  left,  namely,  we  are  to  eat  oleomargarine 
and  plenty  of  it.  It  has  been  necessary  to  go  all  the  way  to  Austria  to  find 
this  out.  Jollies  and  Winkler,  "official  chemists  for  the  Austrian  Govern- 
ment," have  published  the  results  of  their  research  in  the  Zeitschrift  fiir 
Hygiene,  and  they  find  "  that  the  only  germs  ever  present  in  '  oleo '  are  the 
varieties  common  to  air  and  water."  The  dairy  product,  however,  is  especially 
liable  to  contamination.  We  would  like  to  believe  all  this  fairy  tale,  it  is  so 
ingeniously  gotten  up,  but  reason  rebels. 
the  metric  system  of  weights  and  measures. 
The  special  committee  of  the  American  Pharmaceutical  Association  to  further 
the  adoption  of  the  metric  system  in  the  United  States  gave  evidence  in  the  re- 
port presented  at  Montreal  of  having  been  actively  engaged  during  the  year, 
but  nothing  more  than  progress  could  be  reported  by  them.  It  has  been  found 
that  there  is  much  quiet  opposition  to  the  adoption  of  this  system,  which  opposi- 
tion we  believe  is  inspired  by  ignorance.  A  short  time  ago  there  appeared  in  a 
Philadelphia  daily  newspaper  an  article  favorable  to  the  metric  system,  and  in 
order  to  advance  the  cause  elaborate  tables  of  equivalents  in  the  English  and 
metric  systems  were  given.  Now  it  is  just  this  matter  of  comparison  that  frightens 
the  public.  When  a  man  reads  that  a  meter  is  equivalent  to  39'37  inches,  and 
that  a  gramme  is  15*4324  grains,  he  naturally  concludes  that  he  can  never  take 
the  time  to  bother  with  it.    The  way  to  adopt  the  metric  system  is  to  first  get 
