l62 
Use  of  Preservatives  in  Foods. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
April,  1906. 
"  Q.  7461.  A  serious  matter? — A.  I  think  so. 
"  Q.  7462.  And  so  with  other  drugs,  such  as  salicylic  acid  and 
benzoic  acid  and  other  preservatives  ? — A.  Yes." 
I  need  not  cite  to  you  the  results  of  our  own  experiments  in  this 
matter.  They  are  so  extensive  that  I  could  not  even  summarize 
them  here.  I  may  say,  however,  that  we  found  all  the  chemical 
preservatives  which  we  administered  to  our  young  men  harmful. 
These  included  boric  acid  and  borax,  salicylic  acid  and  salicylates, 
benzoic  acid  and  benzoates,  sulphurous  acid  and  sulphites,  formal- 
dehyde and  sulphate  of  copper. 
One  principal  argument  in  favoring  the  use  of  any  of  these  pre- 
servatives is  that  they  are  used  only  in  small  quantities,  yet  who  is 
to  be  the  judge  of  the  quantity  ?  The  answer  is  always,  the  manu- 
facturer. A  "  small  quantity "  is  the  maximum  quantity  that  he 
wants  to  use,  no  difference  what  that  may  be,  and  he  must  neces- 
sarily use  always  more  than  the  indicated  amount  to  be  certain  of 
results.  Should  he  use  less  than  the  amount  necessary  to  kill  all 
the  ferments,  the  application  of  the  preservative  would  be  useless. 
Therefore  it  becomes  a  necessity  always  to  use  a  sufficient  quantity 
to  be  certain.  The  plea  which  is  made  by  those  who  want  to  use 
preservatives  for  the  privilege  of  using  a  minimum  amount  on  the 
ground  of  its  harmlessness  is  not  an  honest  one.  If  the  substance 
which  they  use  is  harmless,  there  seems  to  be  no  necessity  for  limit- 
ing the  amount  of  it  which  they  employ ;  if  it  is  harmful  it  seems 
to  be  unwise  to  admit  any  of  it  into  foods. 
One  of  the  gentlemen  appearing  before  the  committee  stood 
squarely  on  logical  grounds,  and  when  he  was  discussing  the  propo- 
sition to  so  limit  the  power  of  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture  that  he 
could  not  declare  any  preservative  unwholesome  unless  it  had  been 
so  declared  by  a  special  committee,  Mr.  Gardner,  a  member  of  Con- 
gress from  Massachusetts,  said  in  answer  to  a  question  by  Judge 
Bartlett,  of  Georgia : 
Mr.  Gardner. — "  I  quite  understand  that,  Judge.  If  you  will  read 
it  over,  however,  I  think  you  will  see  that  it  does  not  mean  what 
the  people  who  have  introduced  it  perhaps  think  it  does  mean.  At 
all  events,  I  wish  to  appear  and  present  my  witnesses  in  behalf  of 
the  addition  to  the  Hepburn  bill  of  a  paragraph  which  shall  provide 
a  minimum  of  this  sort,  and  make  it  impossible  for  any  commission, 
whether  it  shall  be  composed  in  such  a  way  as  was  suggested  by 
