A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons | Page 6

assert that the smell and taste are the only certain tests of which the nature of the thing will admit. For example, if a bark should have in every respect the appearance of good cinnamon, and should be proved indisputably to be the genuine bark of the cinnamon tree; yet if it want the cinnamon flavour, or has it but in a low degree, we reject it: and the case is the same with the essential oil of cinnamon. It is only from use and habit, or comparisons with specimens of known quality, that we can judge of the goodness, either of the drugs themselves, or of their oils.
Most of the arrow-root, the fecula of the Maranta arudinacea, sold by druggists, is a mixture of potatoe starch and arrow-root.
The same system of adulteration extends to articles used in various trades and manufactures. For instance, linen tape, and various other household commodities of that kind, instead of being manufactured of linen thread only, are made up of linen and cotton. Colours for painting, not only those used by artists, such as ultramarine,[3] carmine,[4] and lake;[5] Antwerp blue,[6] chrome yellow,[7] and Indian ink;[8] but also the coarser colours used by the common house-painter are more or less adulterated. Thus, of the latter kind, white lead[9] is mixed with carbonate or sulphate of barytes; vermilion[10] with red lead.
Soap used in house-keeping is frequently adulterated with a considerable portion of fine white clay, brought from St. Stephens, in Cornwall. In the manufacture of printing paper, a large quantity of plaster of Paris is added to the paper stuff, to increase the weight of the manufactured article. The selvage of cloth is often dyed with a permanent colour, and artfully stitched to the edge of cloth dyed with a fugitive dye. The frauds committed in the tanning of skins, and in the manufacture of cutlery and jewelry, exceed belief.
The object of all unprincipled modern manufacturers seems to be the sparing of their time and labour as much as possible, and to increase the quantity of the articles they produce, without much regard to their quality. The ingenuity and perseverance of self-interest is proof against prohibitions, and contrives to elude the vigilance of the most active government.
The eager and insatiable thirst for gain, which seems to be a leading characteristic of the times, calls into action every human faculty, and gives an irresistible impulse to the power of invention; and where lucre becomes the reigning principle, the possible sacrifice of even a fellow creature's life is a secondary consideration. In reference to the deterioration of almost all the necessaries and comforts of existence, it may be justly observed, in a civil as well as a religious sense, that "in the midst of life we are in death."
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Times, May 18, 1818. The King v. Richard Bowman. The defendant was a brewer, living in Wapping-street, Wapping, and was charged with having in his possession a drug called multum, and a quantity of copperas.
The articles were produced by Thomas Gates, an excise officer, who had, after a search, found them on the defendant's premises. The Court sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of 200l.
The King v. Luke Lyons. The defendant is a brewer, and was brought up under an indictment charging him with having made use of various deleterious drugs in his brewery, among which were capsicum, copperas, &c. The defendant was ordered to pay the fines of 20l. upon the first count, 200l. upon the third, and 200l. upon the seventh count in the indictment.
The King v. Thomas Evans. The charge against this defendant was, that he had in his possession forty-seven barrels of stale unpalatable beer. On, the 11th of March, John Wilson, an excise officer, went to the storehouse, and found forty-seven casks containing forty-three barrels and a half of sour unwholesome beer. Several samples of the beer were produced, all of them of a different colour, and filled with sediment. A fine of 30l. was ordered to be paid by the defendant.
[2] Of this root, several varieties are imported. The white sort, which has no wrinkles, and no perceptible bitterness in taste, and which, though taken in a large dose, has scarcely any effect at all, after being pulverised by fraudulent druggists, and mixed with a portion of emetic tartar, is sold, at a low price, for the powder of genuine ipecacuanha root.
[3] Genuine ultramarine should become deprived of its colour when thrown into concentrated nitric acid.
[4] Genuine carmine should be totally soluble in liquid ammonia.
[5] Genuine madder and carmine lakes should be totally soluble by boiling in a concentrated solution of soda or potash.
[6] Genuine Antwerp blue should not become deprived of its colour when thrown into liquid chlorine.
[7] Genuine chrome yellow should not effervesce with nitric acid.
[8] The best Indian