1 Juny, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 53 
The effect of boric acid on lower animal and vegetable organisms is well 
known, and its value as an antiseptic must be chiefly based on the fact that small 
doses prove fatal to the life of lower organisms. Higher plants are also affected 
by solutions of boric acid. Hitter proved that the green colouring matter of 
plants (the chlorophyll) is destroyed by boric acid, and consequently the assimi- 
lation of food arrested. Grass may be killed by an application of a solution of 
boric acid. 
The effect of boric acid and borates on man and animals has been studied 
by a great number of scientists, but the results of their investigators are by 
no means conclusive. Some of the investigators—for instance, the French 
commission appointed to study the influence of boracic acid on the human 
system—found that it could be taken for a considerable time without injurious 
effects. More recent experiments proved that small doses. of boric acid, 
or borax, have no injurious effects, whereas larger doses produce distinct 
physiological disturbances—a danger will consequently arise if boric acid is used 
indiscriminately as a preservative. 
The Medical Officer for Health for Hast Kent, Dr. M. K. Robinson, has 
shown that a serious outbreak of illness, by which five out of the seven inmates 
of a house were suddenly attacked, was due to a repeated addition of a preser- 
vative containing boric acid. Milk was at once suspected, being not only taken 
by itself, but also with tea and in a blanc-mange. 
It was found that the cook added preservative to the milk, which already 
contained boric acid when delivered by the dairyman. ‘The result was that, by 
using the preservative twice, over-doses of boric acid had been administered. 
The remainder of the blane-mange was given to nine fowls, of which five 
died; the rest suffered badly, but recovered. 
Dr. Robinson states* that the addition of the drug should be regarded as 
an injurious adulteration. If such results, he says, can be produced in the case 
of adults, it is not unreasonable to presume that infants cannot take with 
impunity long-continued doses in their staple food. The opinion is general 
among physiologists that all preservatives, when effectual, either from their 
nature or quantity, in so injuring the micro-organisms which bring about 
fermentation or putrefaction of food as to inhibit their action, also injure those 
persons who consume such food. If a preservative substance can so influence 
the proto-plasmic integrity of bacteria and other low forms of life as well as of 
the faanen forms like ordinary plants, it is difficult to conceive that the same. 
basis of life-tissues in animals, especially that of the mucuous membrane of: 
the alimentary canal, should not also be injuriously affected, to say nothing of 
those beneficial bacteria concerned in the digestive processes. 
In 1897, a “ Lancet Special Sanitary Commission on the Use of Antisepties 
in Food” was appointed, and consulted eminent members of the medical pro- 
fession, as, for instance, Sir Benjamin W. Richardson, Sir Henry Thompson, 
Dr. Lauder Brunton, Dr. Pavy, Dr. F. J. Allen, and others on the subject. 
In spite of a great difference of views expressed by the various authorities, 
they all agree in stating that the antiseptics taken continuously in food, in 
sufficient quantity, are injurious to health, and they all insist that the name and 
the quantity of the antiseptic used should be stated on a label attached to the 
article when sold. Some of the medical men demand a restriction on the 
amounts of preservatives used; others again wish for a complete prohibition 
of the use of antiseptics. 
By the laws of Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, and most 
other countries, the addition of preservatives to foods is’ absolutely forbidden. 
In England, although an Adulteration Act has been in existence for a long 
time, no’ direct action to prevent the use of antiseptics has been taken; and 
only recently, since 1898, numerous convictions have been obtained for the 
-addition of boric acid to milk and butter at a great many places. 
* Quoted from the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society, No. 37. 
