The adulteration of food.

Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The adulteration of food. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    12/12 (page 202)
    experienced scientific observers, wlio have been carefully educated. This valuable improvement was intro- duced by the present able Chairman, and has been in active exercise for many years. The onty deficiency in this arrangement is the absence of a controlling head, thoroughly acquainted with the existing con- dition of the collateral sciences. ‘ The absence of any very great or extensive adulteration is to be explained, we apprehend, by the constant supervision exercised over the manufacture of tobacco on the part of the Excise.’ This is the affirmation of Dr. Hassall, and holds out every prospect of a similar result in reference to the surveillance of articles intended for human consumption. The Excise, however, have not been so successful in the prevention of adulteration in retailed spirits and fermented liquors. In this respect the Sanitary Com- mission has done good service, and has demonstrated that the best way is to detect and pillory the perpe- trators of such abominations as are now common, of mixing tincture of capsicum or cayenne, oil of cassia with gin, and thus advertise the consumers of such substances of the nature of the fiery particles intro- duced into their interiors. The Board of Health has already, unlike its predecessor, begun its operations [August, on a genuine scientific basis, by the appointment of a Medical Council, and the publication of a series of reports on the state of the water supply and the atmosphere, and the influence of medicine on the epi- demic which has so recently de- vastated many a dwelling. We begin to have some hopes that our Government has at last discovered the only genuine method of in- stituting inquiries, viz., not by compiling Blue Books filled with an omnium gatherum of all sorts of opinions, conjectures, and sur- mises, but by putting forth a simple statement of facts by com- petent, responsible observers, and a scientific analysis of the re- sults, and careful logical deductions without overstraining the pre- mises. The reports now issued by the Board of Health are of such a character that they cannot fail to prove valuable works of reference in the sciences of meteorology, che- mistry, natural history, &c.; and from the care with which the data have been obtained, the caution ex- ercised in the conclusions, the artis- tic power exhibited in the drawings, there can be no doubt the Board will constitute a new power in the state, if its operations are followed men c ed. D EE AM-L A HD. Wonderful Life! So sad with partings, and so sweet with meetings, Made up of wild farewells, and wilder greetings ; Oh word, with wonder rife ! What do we here ? Whence come we with this longing loving breast? Why do we live to die ? we fear our rest; And are afraid to fear ! Ah ! tell us why, Why are our pleasures dead within the day, While pains make nest-homes of our hearts and stay! Wherefore comes misery ? And wherefore Pain? And why on our sad Planet, else so fair, Dwell Hate, and Cowardice, and pale Despair, And the hot rage for gain ?