Alum sets free the gas from bicarbonate of soda slowly and with greater regularity than cream of tartar, and therefore does much better and more effective work. * * * Alum baking powders * * * are the best, not only because a given quantity will raise more bread than the same quantity of cream of tartar baking powder, but because of the small quantity and innocent character of the residue they leave in the bread.” (Memorial, pp. 29–32; these same quotations are mostly reproduced in the pamphlet, Some Interesting Information about Baking Powders, published by the American Baking Powder Association.)

The memorial also refers to the testimony taken in the Missouri alum baking powder case (State v. Layton), in which men who had worked in alum factories for 13, 16, and 20 years, respectively, grinding exsiccated alum, stated that their long and constant exposure to alum dust had done them no harm. Their appearance was perfectly healthy, and their records showed that for 2 or 3 years at a time they had not missed a day. Similar evidence was given by persons who worked in alum baking powder factories and who were in like manner constantly exposed to the dust of alum.

The judge before whom this case was tried used the following language in his decision:

"It was not proven in evidence that there were any instances in the use of alum baking powders which resulted in the leaving in the food product any free alum-that is, in its original form. Some experiments showed that alum in some form, whether in its original shape or as a compound, in combination with other substances, did exist in the resulting product. It is to be noted that in every instance the quantity of alum or alum compounds found by analysis in the resulting food products was extremely small and far below the limit fixed by experiment as being a quantity sufficient to produce appreciable effects upon the individual using the food product in any quantity, such as would be obtained in its use as food—such as would be obtained in practice.

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Upon cross-examination the experts testifying for the prosecution admitted that in all their experience and in all their reading and information that they possessed on the subject they had never themselves come in contact with, nor could they obtain, any information or any knowledge of any recorded instances in which functional disorders or disease or impairment of the digestion and general health had resulted to any human being from the use of alum baking powder as an ingredient in the preparation of food.

"In the mind of the court this fact, considering the enormous proportions to which the alum baking-powder industry has grown in this country and the length of time in which such baking powders have been in use, stands as a stone wall against the deductions of the most eminent scientists who presented their theories on the part of the prosecution. I am unable to find in the evidence in this case any just ground for a ruling that alum baking powders, of themselves, when used in the preparation of food, are in anywise less wholesome than any other variety of baking powders." (Memorial, 36, 37.)

The memorial of the American Baking Powder Association declares that there is never more alum used in alum baking powder than is necessary to release the gas; for alum is the expensive ingredient and a manufacturer would not naturally use more than is needed. (Memorial, 3.)

The letters (published by the Richmond Chamber of Commerce) from Mr. STONER and Mr. SEDDON, attorneys for the defense in the case of State v. Layton brought to enforce the alum baking-powder law in Missouri, declare further that the defendant introduced many witnesses to show the healthfulness of alum baking powders. Among these were boarding house and hotel keepers who had used these baking powders for years, manufacturers and sellers who had made and sold them for years, and leading physicians who had used them in their families. The defendant also secured Dr. Austin Flint and Dr. E. E. Smith, of New York, to conduct a series of experiments (elsewhere described) as to the actual physiological results of the use of alum baking powder. Professor Keiser, of Washington University, St. Louis, also testified in the defense. These lawyers declare that the evidence of all these witnesses demonstrated beyond doubt that alum baking powders had been in use for many years, that fully 120,000,000 pounds are used yearly, and that they had proved entirely acceptable to consumers and were a standard article like sugar or flour.

It was further shown that no alum remains in the bread. No witness for the prosecution could testify that he ever heard of a single case of derangement of the human system attributed to the use of alum baking powder. The witnesses simply declared that alum was not a natural food product and that its injurious effects when taken in small doses would depend upon the question whether it was taken into circulation or was eliminated from the system, a question as to which they had conducted no experiments to determine the answer.

Dr. PETER T. AUSTEN stated before the Senate committed that the alum used in baking powder is a calcined or exsiccated alum, a white powder which is only partly soluble in water and has not the sharp astringent taste of ordinary alum. Bicarbonate of soda is mixed with exsiccated alum and a neutral filler, such as starch. In bread making carbonic-acid gas is set free gradually, and the bread is made porous and digestible. The baking powder is entirely decomposed, leaving a certain amount of sodium sulphate, which is a very common substance and a natural constituent of foods, and hydrate of alumina. Professor Smith and Dr. Flint concluded from their experiments that they could find absolutely no difference in physiological effect between bread made with alum baking powder and normal bread in which the residuum was only common salt. The people of this country use 100,000,000 pounds of alum baking powder a year, and ample investigation has failed to find any deleterious effect. Very eminent authorities are very strongly in favor of the use of alum baking powder, and state that they use it in their own families. There is no positive evidence against its use. (Senate committee, 13, 14.) Dr. Austen, testifying before the judiciary committee of the Georgia legislature said, in addition to the above statements, that it is a mistake to suppose that alum used in baking powder remains in the bread as alum. Hydrate of alumina is believed by most recent authorities to be insoluble in the digestive juices and to pass from the body as inert matter. No proof has been adduced to show that either of these residual products of alum baking powder has any injurious effect. Dr. Austen declares that the inclusion of alum with arsenic and calomel, which are admitted to be poisonous, indicates ignorance or intention to mislead. There is no ground for considering alum as poisonous, although almost any article will produce death if taken in large enough quantities. Alum is often prescribed by physicians in doses of from 10 to 20 grains. Powdered alum is often blown into the throat for the treatment of relaxed membranes. No proof has been adduced by any experiment that the residual product of alum baking powder in bread produces harmful effects.

Dr. Austen quotes Dr. Sutton, public analyst for Norfolk (England) and other places, to the effect that all kinds of flour contain a small amount of alumina, so that it would be necessary in judging the effect of alum baking powder to determine how much of the alumina in the bread comes from the baking powder and how much from the flour. In Dr. Sutton's opinion alumina is not injurious to health.

The witness also quotes the following authorities to the effect that alum baking powder is not injurious to health, giving in most cases brief extracts from the language of the authorities: Dr. J. L. W. Thudicum, F. C. P., Lond., F. C. S.; Dr. Petraeus; A. Wynter Blythe; Dr. B. Ward Richardson, an eminent English sanitarian; Dr. Beverly, assistant surgeon to the Norfolk (England) and Norwich Hospital; Dr. C. M. Tidy, professor of chemistry and forensic medicine at the London Hospital; Professor Patrick, of the University of Kansas.

Dr. Austen also quotes from Dr. Henry Froehling, of Richmond, Va., who wrote in answer to a request from the commissioner of agriculture of Virginia, as follows: "From my experiments, carefully made, a well-compounded baking powder with alum as an ingredient, in the recognized proportions, is as harmless as the best cream-of-tartar powder; indeed it is less harmful, as the cream-of-tartar powder leaves in the bread a large residue of tartrate of potash and soda (Rochelle salts). I find that well-compounded baking powder, with alum as an ingredient, gives a leavening effect fully equal to the high-priced baking powders costing 4 or 5 times as much."

The witness also points out that alum is regularly used in Atlanta and other cities in Georgia for purifying the public water supply. The chemical reaction by which this process is accomplished is very similar to that taking place in bread raised with alum baking powder. The hydrate of alumina which is produced is removed by filtration and is not actually drunk. In the same way the alumina in the bread does not pass into the system at all. (Pamphlet entitled "Some interesting information about baking powders,” pp. 1–8.)

The Richmond Chamber of Commerce not only cites testimony elsewhere digested in this report, but also local testimony. Thus, Dr. Hunter McGuire, who is said to have stood in the foremost rank of his profession, declared his full concurrence in the opinion that there is nothing injurious in alum baking powder, adding that he permitted its use in his own house and in his hospital. Fifty-one physicians of Richmond also testified that in all their experience they had never had a patient whose diseased condition of the digestive system could be attributed wholly or in part to the use of alum baking powder in food, and that they never new a case of functional disorder as a result of the use of such powder. This statement is made in the face of the fact that fully 98 per cent of the baking powder used in Richmond is alum baking powder. The Chamber of Commerce

also points out that there has been a remarkable decrease in the death rate of Richmond during the last 8 years, concurrently with the enormous increase in the consumption of alum baking powders, and that there has also been a marked decrease in the death rate of the United States.

It is added, further, that the daily habits of the people afford the safest test of healthfulness. The people who from day to day perform practical physiological experiments without preconceived notions of the results afford evidence more satisfactory than the opinions of chemists. The result of this test is a vindication of alum baking powders. (Pamphlet issued by Chamber of Commerce.)

Mr. EDWARDS refers to the practical experience of millions of people who are daily using alum baking powder without evil effects, and also to a series of physiological experiments conducted for the Missouri case, and to be further extended, which he predicts will show conclusively that alum in baking powder is absolutely harmless. He explains that the alum is used merely to release the gas, and says no alum is left in the food, the residuum being hydrate of alumina, which is harmless. (Senate committee, 8.)

Mr. JOHN DAVIS, president of the Detroit Chemical Works, states that he began in 1868 with the manufacture of cream of tartar baking powder, but with a view to economy turned to baking powder containing alum. After his business was destroyed by an explosion he continued only the manufacture of the acid chemicals used. He has studied the subject, and resolved to produce nothing that would be injurious. He has used alum baking powder in his own family for 25 years. He says the only denial of the healthfulness of alum baking powder comes from the Royal Baking Powder Company or its employed men, who receive a money value for their testimony, and from cranks. (Senate committee, 19, 20.) Hon. R. W. TAYLER, member of Congress from Ohio, states that he has constituents who manufacture alum baking powder at Canton, Ohio, and have been doing so for a great many years. They are ready, if necessary, to present cumulative evidence that their product is pure and innocuous, a promoter of health rather than a menace to it. (Senate committee, 17.)

Mr. HOOPER COYNE, manager of the Sea-Gull Specialty Company of Baltimore, Md., says that this company, which is in no way connected with any trust, manufactures an alum baking powder which has been analyzed and indorsed by the State chemist and by the chemist of the city health department. Mr. Coyne has been engaged in the sale and manufacture of alum baking powder for 19 years; he has been eating biscuits made from alum baking powder about that length of time, and his health is very good. (Senate committee, 26.)

Mr. R. B. DAVIS says he produces annually up into the millions of pounds of baking powder in which there is a small proportion of alum. He formerly manufactured cream of tartar baking powder, but caused physiological examinations to be made of the alum product, and began the manufacture of alum baking powder purely on physiological grounds. (Senate committee, 24.)

Mr. F. J. ACH, of Dayton, Ohio, states that he has for more than 20 years been engaged in the manufacture of alum baking powder, and during all that time has used no other baking powder in his own household but the product he manufactures, containing alum as its principal constituent. During that time he has developed from a rather dyspeptically inclined stripling to a perfectly healthy state, and has reared a family which has never encountered anything more serious than the measles or the mumps. The young women in his employ have never shown any symptoms of ill health beyond a normal amount, though they necessarily inhale more or less of the dust of the powder in the process of canning and labeling. About half a dozen have been employed more than 10 years, and one for 20 years. He has done business under the administration of three State food commissioners, and has conformed exactly to the regulations of Ohio. The question has come up a number of times, and he has always been able to demonstrate the harmlessness of his baking powder. (Senate committee, 23, 24.)

Dr. W. B. D. PENNIMAN, chemist of the Maryland State board of health, states that under the law of Maryland he can be called upon by any physician to investigate any matter which he thinks affects the health of his patients, and it is also his duty to look into any case of suspected poisoning; but he has never had a case of suspected poisoning where he found any harm in the baking powder, or in which a physician thought that baking powder was the possible cause of sickness, although hundreds of cases have been brought before him. He has examined many samples of baking powders and their constituents, and has never seen a sample containing any ingredient which is recognized as a poison. Dr. Penniman says there is no evidence to show that any individual was ever injured by either alum or tartrate baking powder, but what little evidence there is would seem to show that the Rochelle salts formed by cream of tartar powders have a more active medicinal effect than the hydroxide left by the alum. There is no excess

of alum in ordinary baking powder over the amount which will combine with the sodium bicarbonate, because it costs more than any other single ingredient of the powder. (Senate committee, 20-22.)

Mr. STEELE says there is no epidemic prevailing among the consumers of alum baking powders. He submits an extract from the decision of the court in a Missouri case, elsewhere quoted. (Senate committee, 5, 6. See also Udell, 12; Austen, 14.)

Mr. CHARLES E. JAQUES, of Chicago, has been engaged for 12 or 15 years in the manufacture of alum baking powder, and has yet to hear of the first instance of any one being made sick by its use. (Senate committee, 27.)

Mr. F. E. ÜDELL states that the Provident Chemical Works of St. Louis have for more than 20 years manufactured powdered acid phosphate of calcium, which is used in combination with alum in the manufacture of baking powder. It can not be used alone, on account of its acting too quickly when combined with soda, and hence not keeping the requisite time. He says this acid phosphate is recognized as the most healthful acid that can be used in the compounding of foods. Some 300 or 400 manufacturers of baking powders in the United States are customers of his company. Mr. Udell believes it more healthful for use in baking powders than cream of tartar; he has used it in his own family for years. The hydrate of alumina occurs in bread in a quantity so infinitesimally small that even though a man were to eat a whole loaf of bread it could not possibly injure him. Professor Mallet testified that he had experimented upon himself, and that he took 20 grains of hydrate or hydroxide of alumina before there was any perceptible effect. In a whole loaf of bread there are only 12 grains. It was further brought out by the experts on both sides that in all the samples of bread made with alum baking powder there was not a particle of alum left in the bread. (Senate committee, 11–13.)

Mr. GEO. A. THOMPSON of Cincinnati says that he uses alum baking powder at home; that it is used in hospitals, physicians' families, in all kinds of private families, and in restaurants, and that no one has ever been injured by it. He himself makes his baking powder, so that he breathes it and is covered with it, and for 5 years he has never lost a day on account of illness. (Senate committee, 28.)

B. Physiological experiments of Dr. Smith and Professor Flint.-Dr. E. E. SMITH of New York, in the New York Medical Journal of October 27, 1900, publishes the results of certain experiments made by himself and Professor Austin Flint as to the effect of alum baking powder upon digestion. He says that opinions as to the effect of such baking powder are usually based upon the judgment as to whether the alumina into which the alum is converted is soluble or insoluble. The harmfulness is supposed to come from the solubility of the salts of alumina and its consequent absorption into the system.

The experiments referred to were made with bread leavened with alum baking powder, in comparison with bread made in precisely the same way but with bicarbonate of soda and hydrochloric acid for leavening. Two healthy men were given 60 grams of the alum baking-powder bread for breakfast, and 4 days later an equal quantity of the other bread. The contents of the stomach were examined in each case for acid and pepsin, with the following results:

Dr. Smith thinks that these results are negative and the slight differences are rather the inevitable variation in all physiological experiments than the effects of the different methods of leavening the bread. He considers that the conditions of the experiment were fair. The limited amount of material available did not permit of a quantitative estimate of the amount of pepsin in the stomach.

A more elaborate experiment was conducted to ascertain the availability of the food elements of the two kinds of bread. A healthy man was given a diet consisting of bread made with alum baking powder, meat, milk, and butter. The bread constituted 64.6 per cent of the solids eaten. This diet was continued for 3 days. At a later time the same person was given precisely the same diet in quantity and quality, except that the bread was made as above indicated. The result of the experiment as determined by careful weighing of the constituents of the fæces during the respective periods is as follows:

Dr. Smith concludes from these results as follows: "It is thus found that the availabilities of the diet in the two periods are practically identical, agreeing as closely, in fact, as can be expected of duplicate experiments on precisely the same diet."

The composition of the urine during the two periods was also determined, to indicate the amount of nitrogenous waste and the amount of the products of putrefaction formed by the intestines and absorbed. The results were so nearly the same as to indicate no greater degree of the putrefactive process in the one case than in the other.

In conclusion, then, the evidence of these experiments is that food prepared by the use of a so-called alum baking powder does not interfere with secretion in the stomach, and, even when it makes up the major part of the diet, it is utilized by the body in the same way and to the same extent as an acceptable control diet. The investigation does not reveal any reason for believing such food at all injurious or unwholesome."

Referring to the experiments of Professor Flint, Professor P. T. Austen, and Dr. Smith, the memorial of the American Baking Powder Association says: "As these experiments are the only ones that have been conducted on human beings, in which the most modern means of investigation have been applied, they conclusively prove that the effect of hydrate of alumina is entirely negative, neutral, and that therefore bread made with alum baking powder, which leaves hydrate of alumina as the residue, is as wholesome and nutritious as the Liebig ideal bread."

C. Replies to witnesses against alum baking powder.-The memorial of the American Baking Powder Association presents an answer to each of the witnesses who testified against alum baking powder before the Senate Committee on Manufactures. Only a few of these answers are referred to separately in the following paragraphs. The memorial declares that there was a great amount of learned talk and a great amount of expression of opinion, but that no one knows of a specific case of injury to health by the use of food prepared with alum baking powders. It is also declared that the attempt is very adroitly made in some of the questions and answers to apply to food made with alum baking powder the information given about alum. It is pointed out that eating alum and eating bread made with alum baking powder are entirely different and distinct matters. "In the former case one eats alum, and in the latter one doesn't.”

It is suggested that Professor Prescott's remark about astringents and precipitants (page 35 of Digest) can be applied as well to other articles of food, such as coffee and tea (both of which contain tannin, the astringent par excellence), many fruits, nuts, wines, etc.

"Professor Vaughan testified that he had never conducted any experiments with bread cooked with alum baking powder, or eaten it, or fed it to others for the purpose of seeing what effect it would have upon the health and the digestion. He also swore that it would be impossible to tell what the effects of food prepared with alum baking powder would be upon persons of normal health, and that during 25 years of reading, practice, and experience he has never seen any ill effects traceable to the use of alum baking powder, and further that his opinion as to the deleterious effects of the use of alum baking powder was based upon theoretical propositions, and not upon cases that had come under his individual observation or which were recorded in books.