Professor VAUGHAN sees no reason why certain coloring matters should not be used to improve the appearance of food, which has some effect upon its digestibility, but he says the general object of coloring matter is to enable the seller to sell an inferior grade in place of a higher grade. (203.)

Mr. ALLEN MURRAY, a drug and spice miller, does not think there is anything in his drug department that goes into food, unless it is a little harmless prutzeneil that ladies buy to make colored cake. (70.)

Professor PRESCOTT says copper green or copper sulphate is used quite largely in pickles and in peas, and other vegetables, acting as much or more as a mordant than as a direct coloring agent. (199.)

Dr. PIFFARD says he has met with creme de menthe colored with methyl green. It was not made from mint, but was probably a mixture of methyl and sugar, wood alcohol, and methyl green. He does not know that this is injurious, but the consumer should be protected in getting what he orders, (192.)

B. In butter and oleomargarine (see also Oleomargarine, p. —).—Mr. DELAFONTAINE, of Chicago, a chemist, says that until comparatively lately annatto was extensively used in butter and imitations of butter, but that recently he has examined samples of butter and butterine the coloring matter of which was not annatto, but was one of the aniline or coal-tar colors, some of which are very poisonous, or a derivative from them. (229.)

Professor VAUGHAN sees no reason why butter should not be colored with annatto. We demand June butter all the year round. Annatto is a vegetable coloring matter formerly used a great deal, but the azo compounds, which are aniline colors, are now used almost exclusively because they give a more permanent color. He thinks there would be no objection to the coloring of oleomargarine with harmless coloring matter not interfering with digestibility if it were still sold as oleomargarine. He has never found any poisonous matters in sufficient quantity to act in butter or oleomargarine, and is positive that the aniline colors used in butter and oleomargarine are not at all harmful as they are used. He thinks their use might be permitted within certain limits. (203.)

Professor PRESCOTT says coloring matter is used largely in butter and oleomargarine. In oleomargarine coal-tar colors are used, chiefly the colors called azo dyes, which have been declared to be poisonous. Professor Prescott believes them objectionable in food, at least until it shall be known which of them are harmless. He believes that any coloring matter which tends to deceive the consumer as to an article of food he is buying is also indirectly injurious. The objection to coloring matter applies in a lesser degree as between winter and summer butter, because the difference is not nearly so great as between butter and oleomargarine. In analyzing butter colors he has found them to be some preparation of annatto, which is not objectionable, but he would not be surprised if some of the ordinary butter colors now in use contained coal-tar colors. The color of azo dyes is more permanent than that of annatto. (198, 199.)

Mr. H. C. ADAMS says there are two kinds of coloring matter on the marketannatto and aniline. The latter have come into more general use of late because of the permanence of the color. They are unquestionably poisonous to a greater or less degree. In Wisconsin a child was killed by drinking a comparatively small amount-1 or 2 teaspoonfuls-of one of these coloring matters. (209.)

Dr. WILEY says annatto has gone practically out of use. A member of a firm which formerly made it exclusively has told him that they have almost absolutely stopped making it, and that there is no demand for it either from butter makers or from oleomargarine makers. (223.)

Mr. PIRRUNG says the color used in his oleomargarine is a pure vegetable color made from the annatto bean; no chemical dyes are used. (315.)

Mr. STERNE declares there is not an atom of aniline dye used in the oleomargarine business. (223.)

C. In confectionery.-Dr. WILEY says the use of an innocuous coloring matter in confectionery is very important. The coloring in confectionery appeals to the individual's taste, and the manufacturers have studied the æsthetic part and obtained some of the most pleasing tints. Occasionally poisonous colors have been used, but since publicity was first given to the matter this evil has been mitigated, and the witness doubts if a single poisonous material can be found in use at the present time. Aniline dyes or harmless vegetable substances are used instead. There is no necessity for using poisonous dyes, because the desired tints can be obtained with perfectly harmless ones, and the difference in cost is very minute. Mineral coloring has been almost tabooed. Chromate of lead, formerly employed to give the yellow tint, has gone out of use. Of about 100 kinds of colored confectionery examined by the witness only 2 were found to contain mineral coloring matters, all the rest being of animal or vegetable origin, and not

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poisonous. He thinks very few of the coloring matters used will prove injurious in small quantities. (30,31.)

D. Aniline colors. (See also Soda-water sirups, p. ―.)-Professor MITCHELL says aniline coloring matters are made of aniline oil, a chemical obtained from coal tar, which takes many hues. Aniline first came into importance through the production of a red coloring matter, magenta. (115.)

Mr. DELAFONTAINE says the use of coal-tar coloring matters seems to be taking the place of vegetable coloring matters, not only in butterine and butter, but in confectionery, and for red and yellow colors in jellies and preserves. (229.)

Mr. BILLINGS says very few of the aniline dyes are used medicinally. Some of them, as methylene blue, can usually be taken with impunity; others, as vermilion red, are said to produce somewhat poisonous effects from the essential aniline. Aniline is an oily fluid from which the colors are made. Dr. Billings would not recommend the use of aniline dyes in confectionery or in food. (249.) Dr. PIFFARD says aniline dyes are used in connection with butter and wines. In France they were formerly used to a considerable extent, but were found to be distinctly injurious, and their use has been corrected in great measure by legislation. Some of the aniline colors contain arsenic as an accidental impurity; it has been found in that class of aniline known as rose aniline, magenta, fuchsin, etc. Aniline coloring matters have not been sufficiently investigated by chemists and physiologists. (191, 192.)

Mr. HELLER says the color used for sausage is aniline dye. There are different kinds of aniline dyes; some are poisonous because made by an arsenic process, and some are perfectly harmless. The imported aniline dye used by Heller & Co. is guaranteed by the manufacturers perfectly harmless. Aniline dyes are used in a good many food products; they make them look more appetizing. The coloring matters for meat contain salt. (180, 181.)

Professor MITCHELL says the better grades of colors, which are guaranteed free from arsenic, generally are not made by the arsenic process. (181.)

E. Proposed legislation.-Professor PRESCOTT would advise that the use of coloring matters be prohibited or declared on the label. He would not undertake to say that it should be prohibited in all cases. Some European governments have issued lists of colors which the law would permit as being harmless. With regard to confectionery he thinks this very wise. (199,200.)

Dr. PIFFARD sees no objection to the coloring of food products if the genuine ingredients are stated. Mustard mixed with a certain portion of carbohydrate is not objectionable if it is so stated. The English have had a great deal of trouble over the question whether the artificial coloring of mustard should be permitted. (188.)

Professor MITCHELL thinks that where coloring matter covers up imitations or conceals impurity in food it ought to be ruled out, and adds that perhaps it might be better to rule out coloring matters entirely. (120.)

Dr. BILLINGS would like to see the use of aniline colors prohibited in the manufacturing of candies. (249.)

Dr. WILEY thinks the National Confectioners' Association will be ready to aid in securing a law prohibiting the use of injurious coloring materials. (31.)

Professor VAUGHAN thinks the Goverment should specify the coloring matters which may be used in butters and butter substitutes. (203.)

Professor CHITTENDEN says that the use of copper and zinc colors to give vegetables a green appearance ought to be prohibited. There is no question here of preservation, or of correcting the possible injurious effects of micro-organisms. The only effect is to deceive the eye. (422, 425.)

XIII. PRESERVATIVES.

A. Various preservative agents.-Dr. WILEY enumerates three ways of preserving food products: (1) By sterilization, or the ordinary canning process; (2) by a low temperature, as in cold storage; (3) by the use of chemicals which prevent the action of the decomposing germs. Decay in all organic matters is not produced by oxidization, as formerly supposed, but is due to the working of ferments. Anything which suspends this action or paralyzes the organisms preserves the product. (1) To destroy the organisms sterilization is practiced. If any organic substance be kept for a certain length of time at a sterilizing temperature, like that of boiling water, the organisms are completely killed, but the spores from which they come endure a higher temperature, and after a few days may develop new organisms, so that sterilization is often continued a greater length of time, or successive sterilizations are practiced, the safer way being to sterilize a second time after time has been given to develop new colonies of germs or ferments. It is not necessary to exclude the air from sterilized foods to preserve them, a tuft

of sterilized cotton over the opening being sufficient. (2) By the second method the activity of all germs is lessened as the freezing point is approached, and a temperature is soon reached at which the activity of the ferments is entirely suspended, so that organic matter can be kept indefinitely without decay in cold storage, or in the natural cold of winter. A great many ferments cease their activity before reaching the freezing point, others only at or below the freezing point; but a temperature is easily reached in which all germs are in a state of suspended animation. (2) In the third method the ferments are paralyzed by chemical reagents known as antiseptics. The use of antiseptics which arrest digestion is prohibited in most European States. (43, 44.)

Mr. I. GILES LEWIS, a wholesale druggist, enumerates four general ways of preserving foods: (1) By heat; (2) by cold; (3) by drying; (4) by the addition of some substance. He lays down the general rule that anything which itself enters into the animal economy is a harmless preservative, being absorbed as the food is digested. The ordinary materials for this purpose are alcohol, sugar, salt, and vinegar, salt and certain spices being exceptions to the rule, because they promote the absorption of the food and are really beneficial, though they might be harmful in large quantities. (33, 34.)

Dr. HENRY G. PIFFARD, of New York City, believes that the compounds of salicylic acid, boric acid, borate of sodium, ordinary borax, and formalin are the antiseptic preparations principally used as preservatives. (191.)

Dr. FRANK BILLINGS, professor of the practice of medicine in Rush Medical College, has no doubt that refrigeration is the best process of preserving foods, but it is impossible to carry it out with our present facilities, and there is no question whatever that some preservative must be used. The moment an animal is killed the formation of toxins begins as the result of the beginning of decomposition. Refrigeration may so retard that that not enough is formed to be really poisonous, and yet there will be more or less of the poison in the meat. This is absolutely stopped by a preservative. He thinks there is quite as much danger in refrigeration as there is in a borax preservative. (248, 249.)

B. Injurious effects of antiseptics.-1. Interference with digestion.-Professor MITCHELL, chemist to the Wisconsin dairy and food commission, calls attention to the importance of the rapidly growing use of preservatives and antiseptics. He defines an antiseptic as a substance which will stop the development of a germ or bacterial life. These antiseptics or antiferments are used in dairy products, to a considerable extent in candy, and a great deal in chopped meats, such as hamburger steaks and sausages. They are used in bulk oysters, in fish, in the brine of some cured meats, such as hams, and possibly in corned beef. They are recommended by sellers for use in almost every conceivable food that will spoil, and are almost universally recommended as being harmless and impossible of detection by chemists. Professor Mitchell considers any active antiseptic necessarily deleterious to health. It retards the processes of the stomach, stopping the working of the normal enzymes or ferments, and possibly, in some cases, stopping the changes which normally take place in the food. (111, 112.)

Dr. WILEY does not think that any manufacturer deliberately puts poisonous bodies into food because they are poisonous. Preservatives usually are not poisonous in the ordinary sense, like morphine, strychnine, or prussic acid, which attack the nerve centers, but are poisonous because they act on the digestive organs and interfere with digestion. Digestion begins as soon as the food enters the mouth, starch being changed into sugar by the saliva. Preservative materials taken into the mouth, therefore, begin at once to interfere with digestion. The saliva will often in 30 seconds change starch into sugar, so that if potatoes or bread be chewed for 30 seconds or a minute one will get practically all the nourishment it contains, as far as starch is concerned; while meat can be swallowed whole; for being digested in the stomach and not in the mouth, chewing does no good except mechanically. Meat-eating animals digest their food in the stomach, swallowing it whole, while some herbivorous animals chew their food twice. There is no preservative which paralyzes the ferments that create decay which does not at the same time paralyze to an equal degree the ferments that produce digestion; so the very fact that a substance preserves food shows that it is not fit to enter the stomach, especially a delicate stomach. (43-46.)

Professor PRESCOTT, dean of the School of Pharmacy of the University of Michigan, says an antiseptic is by virtue of its character in greater or less degree an antidigestive; an agent which will prevent fermentation or putrefaction will prevent the process of digestion by virtue of the same power. (196.)

2. Other considerations.—Professor PRESCOTT believes that in general preservatives and antiseptics in food are injurious to health. They invite the use of certain grades of food which the consumer would otherwise reject, and which are not rendered entirely wholesome by the antiseptic, although it may delay or even

prevent decomposition. Meat which would not otherwise be put on the market may be offered for sale after treatment with an antiseptic. Milk which has just begun to turn sour and could not be distributed to customers without the addition of an antiseptic may be brought back to something like an inoffensive condition so as to be acceptable to purchasers, though lacking the wholesome character of fresh food. (195, 201.)

Professor VAUGHAN thinks that while some preservatives must be allowed in certain foods, as a rule their use is to be condemned for two reasons: They enable men to sell poor-grade articles in place of a better grade, and enable manufacturers to be less careful in other means of preservation, as sterilization. (203, 204.) Professor MITCHELL testifies that some antiseptics are used for improving the apparent quality of food. They do not actually improve the quality, but they cover up the poor quality. One objection to the use of preservatives is that they are coming to be used in every class of foods, so that while only a little is taken in each food, in the aggregate the consumer gets considerable quantities. (113, 116.) Dr. T. C. DUNCAN, of Chicago, writes to the chairman of the committee expressing surprise at seeing statements that borax and salicylic acid can be used without harm, and saying that drugs can not be introduced into the system without doing violence to the organs, drugs not being foods and foods not being drugs. (47.) C. Use of antiseptics defended.-Mr. MARC DELAFONTAINE says the outcry against the use of antiseptics is not well founded. Antiseptics have been used for centuries; that is, salt and smoke. Salt, the creosote in smoke, and vinegar for pickles are antiseptics. As the production of natural articles of food increases, and as the consumers live farther from the makers, it becomes necessary to use articles that will keep the food products fit to eat, and therefore to enlarge the list of antiseptics. The very best antiseptic affects digestion; from its very nature it will act either on the food itself or on the gastric or intestinal juices. The question is which antiseptic is least liable to be injurious. Little is known about formalin (formaldehyde) or about preservaline (sodium fluoride). The question which antiseptics are permissible, and up to what doses, is a question for further investigation. (232, 233.)

Mr. KNIGHT says that the sentiment regarding the use of preservatives is due to the use of preservatives in milk. The sentiment has extended without reason to other products, where the quantity used is so small as to be infinitesimal. (251.)

Professor EATON says the use of antiseptic preservatives in certain products is very general. He considers it safe to use them in such quantities as do not have a physiological effect. In the case of a cumulative poison, such as lead or mercury, the continued use should be taken into consideration in estimating the effect, but he does not think this should be done in the case of coloring matter or preservatives. If a single dose would not produce any effect, perhaps continued use would not. (235.)

Dr. HAINES, professor of chemistry in Rush Medical College, says that the ideal way of presenting food to consumers is without treatment of any kind, but it is often impossible to present it in a fresh state without treatment. A thousand times more damage has been done by the use of food that has not been preserved, through the generation of poisonous substances, ptomaines and the like, than by the preserving agents themselves. The use of antiseptics is therefore necessary and desirable. The question reduces itself to a choice of antiseptics. (283,284.) Dr. EDWARDS, while holding that fresh unpreserved food is the best, declares that it is far better to use some mild preservative than to allow decomposition to go on in food through the action of bacteria. (286.)

Professor CHITTENDEN, professor of physiological chemistry in Yale University, says that the primary object of the use of antiseptics is to prevent the development of micro-organisms. These organisms are not necessarily killed, but their growth is prevented, and the production of their poisonous products is consequently interfered with. Antiseptics do not necessarily interfere with digestion, though as a rule they would interfere with it if the quantity were large enough. (419.)

D. Difficulty of determining physiological effects.-Professor TUCKER says that it is difficult to make general statements of the effect of preservatives on health. Salt and sugar and alcohol are preservatives. There is room for difference of opinion as to the effects of borax, boracic acid, salicylic acid, and formaldehyde, in the quantities ordinarily used in foods. (434.)

Professor JENKINS, of the Connecticut agricultural station, says that it is impossible to give an accurate definition of the word poison. Every man's system is a law unto itself. The comfort of living of each individual depends largely upon his learning by his own experience what agrees with him and what does Professor Jenkins himself can not take sugar to any extent without being

not.

made uncomfortable or even sick by it. Yet he has known of a man who was cured of violent attacks of dyspepsia by taking large quantities of sugar. There are some people who can not endure pickles, some who can not endure food preserved with wood smoke, or much salt food. The difference between the old-time preservatives and the modern ones is that every one knew which of the old preservatives he was using, by the smell and the taste, and could learn by experience whether it agreed with him or not. The modern preservatives do not betray themselves in such ways, and the individual has no opportunity to find out whether or not they injure him. Preservatives have a legitimate place in foods, but they certainly should not be used unless the use of them is distinctly stated on the packages which inclose the foods or unless notice of the use of them is given to the buyer. (449, 454.)

Professor AUSTEN says that it is very difficult to get a competent person in this country to conduct experiments to determine the effect of foods on animals and human beings. One needs to be a physiologist, a chemist, and something of a physician. Professor Atwater and Professor Chittenden, of Yale, are eminent and experienced men in this line of work. A younger school is arising, but the members of it are very few. (537.)

E. Formaldehyde.-1. General statements.-Dr. WILEY testifies that there are preservatives of a gaseous nature which can be used either in a gaseous state or dissolved in water, as formaldehyde or "formalin." Wood alcohol is easily turned into formaldehyde by simply extracting the hydrogen. Dr. Wiley has received a package from a peddler, who was selling a material to keep milk sweet, called "milk sweet," which was about a 1 per cent solution of formaldehyde. By selling it to farmers by the bottle he could make a profit of about 3,000 per cent, and he was selling it all over the State of Illinois. The witness makes no objection to its use by those who like it, but would not want to drink much milk containing it, as it paralyzes the digestive ferments. (45,171.)

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Professor MITCHELL mentions the following preservatives: (1) "Milk sweet" and milk and cream sweet;" (2) "freezine," put out by John B. Heller & Co.; (3) Special M. Preservaline," put up in Chicago by the Preservaline Manufacturing Company and sold by the Creamery Package Manufacturing Company, also consisting of formic aldehyde. Packages of "Special M. Preservaline" have been seized in the milk houses of certain dairymen in Milwaukee. In one instance it was found in milk, and the party was prosecuted successfully. It has been advertised very strongly by circulars and handbills. Professor Mitchell showed the committee a sample of "freezine," claimed to do the work of ice and not to affect the flavor or fresh appearance of milk, cream, or buttermilk, the label having an apparently scientific exposition of what sours milk. On analysis he found it to be formic aldehyde. (112, 114.

Mr. HELLER submits an extract from Merck's Market Report of September 1, 1896, describing formaldehyde as a stable, aqueous solution of formic aldehyde gas (HCOH):

"According to Dr. Berloiz (Nouv. Rem., 1892) formaldehyde is perfectly harmless to man. Dr. Rideal states that he has frequently drank a 1 per cent solution without any ill effects. In a paper read before the Society of Public Analysts, London, on May 1, 1895, Dr. Rideal further states that 1 ounce of formaldehyde solution is used in the trade to do the same work as 5 pounds of the usual boricacid and borax mixture (75 per cent of the former and 25 per cent of the latter). In the case of milk, for instance, the quantity of formaldehyde necessary to preserve it is, according to Dr. Rideal, so small that it is absolutely impossible to detect its presence by the taste or smell, even on boiling, when the formaldehyde passes off as a gas. In liquids, such as beer, formaldehyde has to compete with sulphites; here again, the quantity necessary to effect preservation is much smaller than the equivalent weight of sulphurous acid, and it can not be detected by taste or smell, although when sulphites are used it is frequently possible to notice them in this way. According to Jablin Gomnet, for preserving wine, 1 part of formaldehyde (as on the market) to 2,000,000 suffices; for beer, 1: 1,000,000; for fruit jellies, 1:10,000. But from the reported innocuousness of formaldehyde, it may be inferred that these proportions can be safely exceeded, if necessary.

"Formaldehyde has a peculiar affinity for cellulose, thereby permanently retaining the latter in an antiseptic condition. After several days' contact with fruit or vegetable fiber the formaldehyde disappears as such and can no longer be detected by the methods of testing now in vogue.

"Formaldehyde solution is not eligible as a preservative of products that come into contact with iron, or whose color is due to the iron they contain-e. g., raspberries and strawberries. In such cases formaldehyde produces a purplish coloration.