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ADULTERATION
patent in force ; (3) where it is compounded in accordance with the demand of the purchaser; and (4) where the food or drug is unavoidably mixed with some extraneous matter in the process of collection or preparation.” This clause soon gave rise to an immense amount of litigation, and already in 1879 it was found necessary to pass a short Amendment Act, making it clear that if a purchase was effected by an inspector with the intent to get the purchased sample analysed he was as much “prejudiced” if obtaining a sophisticated article as a private purchaser who purchased an article for his own use and consumption. In the practical carrying out of the Act the chief difficulty was soon found to consist in ascertaining whether any article was “of the nature, substance, and quality demanded by the purchaser.” This, on superficial consideration, seems to be a very simple matter. Thus, if a vendor supplies a customer who demands “milk” with milk and water, or with milk from which a part of the cream has been removed by skimming, it may appear to be a very easy task to ascertain whether the purchaser’s demand has been complied with or not. But the composition of milk as yielded by the cow varies widely under different conditions, with the race and breed of the animal, its food, state of health, the period of lactation, the time of year, climate, &c. Thus, while a good Jersey cow might yield milk with 8 per cent, of fat, a Dutch cow might have but 2f or 3 per cent, of fat in its milk, and a great portion of the fat from the former might be removed before it fell to the level of the latter. Were the analyst to insist upon a standard of fat equal to that present in the best milk, many, even the majority of, genuine samples would have to be condemned, while, if he adopted the lowest recorded limit found in genuine milk, cream might be removed from almost all milk of normal nature, to the great damage of farmers and of the public. Similarly, but not quite to the same degree, there is a variation in the amount of the other food-constituents of milk, the so-called “ solids-not-fat ” or non-fatty solids, from the quantity of which the analyst concludes whether water has been added to the milk. It is obviously impossible to differentiate between the water which is natural to pure milk, and which constitutes the greater part of it, and between water that may have been fraudulently added to the article; but by the addition of water the constituents upon which the food-value of milk is dependent become depressed, and the depression is naturally in proportion to the quantity of added water. It required the united efforts of public analysts, who in 1875 founded the Society of Public Analysts, to ascertain by many tens of thousands of analyses of samples of milk the natural variation of the composition of milk, and to fix reasonable and fair limits applicable to pure milk. The milk yielded by single cows varies widely, and it is almost impossible to state the extremes, but the milk supplied to the public by vendors is almost invariably the mixed product of a herd, and extremes are equalized by such mixing. A monumental record of the composition of mixed milk was made by Dr Paul Yieth, who in 1892 published results of no less than 120,540 analyses of genuine milk, showing that the average composition varied in such manner that the percentage of fat was highest in September, October, and November, and lowest in June and July, while the proportion of “ solids-not-fat ” was subject to comparatively little variation, and that the numbers adopted by public analysts previously, namely, 3 per cent, for fat and 8.5 per cent, for solids-not-fat, were fair and equitable. Further reference will be found on this subject under the subheading “ Milk ” below. Similar difficulties are met with in all other articles of food, and, in fact, with annually extending experience, wider and wider variations in com-
position have been found, continually adding to the difficulty of arriving at a fair conclusion upon the basis of analysis. It may be said that a purchaser who obtains milk of extreme poverty, however untampered with, is prejudiced, because he expects to obtain milk of at least average quality, but the Food Acts are intended to repress and punish fraud only. While, however, milk vendors at first strongly opposed the use of more or less arbitrary limits of composition insisted upon by the executive officers, they slowly recognized that both the interest of the public and their own required them, and of late the raising of the limits has been favourably looked upon by some of the largest milk-vendors. By law no limit or standard is recognized at the present time, but a committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture have carefully inquired into the matter, and have recently reported officially recommending limits for the composition of milk, setting at rest a question which, since 1875, has given rise to a vast amount of labour and to numberless disputes. A curious condition of things arose out of the definition of “food” as given in the Sale of Food Act 1875. “The term ‘ food ’ shall include every article used for food or drink by man, other than drugs or water.” It had been the practice of bakers to add alum to the flour from which bread was manufactured, in order to whiten the bread and to permit the use of damaged and discoloured flour. This practice had been strongly condemned as early as the middle of the century by Liebig, as rendering the bread indigestible and injurious to health. Very shortly after the passing of the Food Act this objectionable practice disappeared, and alumed bread now no longer occurs. A large trade, however, continued to be carried on in baking powders consisting of alum and sodium bicarbonate, mainly used in private households. It was naturally thought that, as baking powder is sold with the obvious intention that it may enter into food, the vendors could also be proceeded against and the noxious trade stamped out. A strongly contested case having come before the High Court (James v. Jones) from the Swansea County Bench, it was held that baking powder was not an article of food, and that it was not an offence within the Food Acts to sell alumed baking powder. Following this decision it was obvious that spices, like pepper, cayenne, &c., were also not articles of food, and a further amendment of the law became inevitable. Before referring to the passing of the amended Act, which came into force in 1899, consideration must, however, be given to another fragment of piecemeal legislation, the Margarine Act of 1887. As early as the sixth decade of the 19th century substitutes for butter had been tried and had found a small market, mainly on the Continent. During the siege of Paris their manufacture received a powerful impulse, and soon after 1870 imitation-butter began to be Margarine sold in increasing quantities under the name of “ butterine.” This consisted of the softer portion of beef and other fats, coloured in imitation of butter, and churned with milk, often also flavoured with butter. The chief seat of manufacture of the article was, as it still is, in Holland, the raw material coming mostly from the United States. Although imported as an article essentially different from butter, its appearance, consistency, and name invited its substitution for real butter at the hand of unscrupulous traders; and there is no doubt that immense quantities of “ butterine ” were sold to the public as butter, to the great damage of farming and legitimate trade interests. Again a parliamentary committee sat and took evidence, and it was resolved to give a new name to the article, that of “ margarine ” (first given by Chevreul to a substance isolated by him from fats in beautiful pearly crystals), and to compel
