The report went on to say that the adoption of the Act had been by no means general, and in many cases where it had been applied, its operation was of a very restricted character; for, even with competent analysts, if inspectors were not appointed at the same time, the Act remained a dead letter. All the London vestries had made appointments, but in only twenty-six out of seventy-one boroughs, and thirty-four out of fifty-four counties, were there at that date official analysts. The examination of tea was recommended to be made on importation by the Customs. The Committee did not consider that the exact proportion of mixtures need be stated on a label, and they wished to record that mixed mustard and prepared cocoa had been long manufactured at Deptford for the supply of the Navy. They recommended that small districts should be consolidated, and that, as a rule, the boroughs in a county should be united with the county for the purpose of appointing one analyst for the entire district; and they pointed out that the only way to secure "the services of really efficient analysts is to offer them a fair remuneration, which can hardly be done without the union of several Local Authorities in one appointment." The Committee concluded their report by remarking that the public was "cheated" rather than "poisoned."

§ 26. Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 1875 and 1879.-On this report was based the Act of 1875, which is at the present moment, with its amendment of 1879, the existing law, and the full consideration of which will be reserved for another Section; the early defect in the Act, however, may be at once alluded to, for it had not been long in operation before its action was almost entirely stopped by legal ingenuity. The sixth section provides that "No person shall sell to the prejudice of the purchaser any article of food or any drug which is not of the nature, substance, and quality of the article demanded by such purchaser;" and in a Justiciary appeal case at Edinburgh, in which an inspector had purchased cream not for his own use but for analysis, the Scotch court discussed the "prejudice" question-three out of seven judges adopting the view that a purchase made under these conditions was not to the "prejudice" of the purchaser, and five out of the seven dismissing the summons on other grounds. The impression produced in this country, however, by the decision of the court, was that the sale, to be effectual, must be made in the ordinary way, and not merely for the purposes of analysis. The same question was raised in quite a different but equally ingenious way in a "mustard case" argued before the Court of Queen's Bench. The purchase in this case was by an officer; the defence being that, as it was well known that mustard was mixed with

flour and other things, such a purchase could not be to the prejudice of the purchaser. The point, however, was left undecided; the question again came before the Court of Queen's Bench, in the case of Sandys v. Small, and the "prejudice" question was argued on both points. Whisky was alleged to have been mixed with water, and the defence set up-that it was known to be so mixed, and therefore not to the prejudice of the purchaser-was held by the court to be good, and the case having been decided upon this point, the other was not proceeded with. Finally, the question was settled by the case of Hoyle v. Hitchman, March 27, 1879. The facts in this instance were of the simplest character: the appellant had purchased milk in the usual official way; the milk was found to be adulterated, and the defence was that, as he did not use the milk, therefore he did not buy the milk for his own use; he was not prejudiced. The magistrate who heard the case considered the defence good, and dismissed the summons.

Justice Mellor, in giving judgment, observed that the "prejudice" view of the Act "would absolutely nullify its beneficial effect. For if the meaning of the enactment is that the offence cannot be complete without its being to the prejudice of the purchaser,' it is hardly possible that the offence should be brought home to any one. And this observation, in my view, goes far to show that this construction cannot be the right one. So far as authority is concerned, there is no direct decision in favour of such a view; and indeed, in the English courts there is hardly any authority upon the point. For in the first of the two cases in this court referred to, the mustard case, my brother Lush distinctly said that, in his view, if the article were adulterated, it must be presumed that it was 'to the prejudice of the purchaser,' and I could not have dissented from that opinion or I could not have concurred in sending the case down to be re-stated on the other point. And as to the other case, no doubt in the course of the argument the Lord Chief-Justice made some such remark, but not by way of a decided dictum, and rather by way of query or suggestion, and the decision went upon the other point, so that there is no authority in the English courts in favour of the view now presented. It cannot be said that the weight of judicial authority is against, and I rather think it is in favour of, the view which we have arrived at after the best consideration given to the question, as to the true construction of the enactment. It is quite general in its terms, and its terms are very large, nor is there anything to limit them, if any one shall sell, to the prejudice of the purchaser, any article of food not of the nature, substance, or quality of the article demanded by the purchaser.' There is nothing to limit the application of the enactment (as

some of the Scotch judges seem to have supposed) to articles deleterious in their nature. And in several of the sections (13 to 17) provisions are made for purchases by public officers for the purpose of analysis and prosecution, assuming that if the article is found to be adulterated the offence will have been committed. It would be strange indeed if all these provisions were to be made nugatory by a construction which would, in effect, come to thisthat proceedings could only be taken by private individuals. Here the purchase was made by the inspector under those sections; but surely the case must be treated as though the purchase had been by a private individual. Now, in the case of a private individual no one could dispute that in such a case as this the offence would have been completed, and the magistrate has so found, in fact. That being so, what difference can it make as to the nature of the offence, that the purchase was by an officer on behalf of the public, and furnished with public money for the purpose? If the purchaser asks for a certain article, and gets an article which by reason of some admixture of a foreign article is not of the nature or quality of the article he asks for, he is necessarily prejudiced;' and how can the fact that the purchase is not with his own money at all affect the question of the commission of the offence? The offence intended to be prevented by the Act was the fraudulent sale of articles adulterated by the admixture of foreign substances, which would necessarily be to the prejudice of the purchaser;' and those words were inserted only to require that such an adulteration should be shown to have been made. Taking all these matters into consideration, I cannot bring my mind to the conclusion that in such a case as this the offence is less complete, merely because the money with which the purchase was made was not the money of the purchaser, which must be wholly immaterial to the seller, and cannot affect the offence he has committed. I come, therefore, to the conclusion that the magistrate was wrong in dismissing the case on that ground, and, therefore, that the case must be remitted to him to be determined on the evidence as to the offence alleged to have been committed."

Mr. Justice Lush, in expressing his entire concurrence, said that the differences of opinion which unfortunately prevailed as to the true construction of the sixth section of the Act had crippled the operation of a most beneficial Act.-Judgment for the appellant.

Finally, the Act of 1875 was amended by the "Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1879," which became law on July 21st in that year. This Act settled the "prejudice" question, authorised the obtaining of samples of milk for the purposes of analysis, and

established standards for spirits. (See sections on the "Existing Law relative to Adulteration.")

V. THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT SCIENTIFIC PROCESSES FOR THE DETECTION OF ADULTERATION.

§ 27. If an attempt were made to write the full history of the modern system of the practical assaying of foods, beverages, and drugs, the result would be neither more nor less than a history of the development of the chemical, physical, botanical, and medical sciences; for there has scarcely been a single advance in any one of those sciences which has not some bearing, immediate or remote, on our subject. Hence, the more useful and less ambitious method to pursue will be merely to notice the chief writings and the more noteworthy discoveries of those who have explored this special field of investigation.

The very early and brief notices in the old writers have been already mentioned. The first general works on adulteration were devoted to drugs rather than to foods, and the herbals and the older works contain here and there, scattered through their prolix pages, casual mention of substitutions or falsifications. For example, Saladin of Ascala, a physician to the Grand Constable of Naples, who wrote in the fifteenth century a work on the aromatic principles of drugs, describes methods of preserving food, and in speaking of the adulteration of manna with sugar and starch, cites the case of an apothecary who was fined heavily and deprived of his civil rights.

§ 28. In the early part of the seventeenth century Bartoletus discovered by analysis milk-sugar (see chapter on "Milk"), and to this epoch belong also some observations and experiments of another Italian, San Francesco Redit of Florence, published in 1660, on the amount of mineral substances in pepper, ginger, and

*This work, "Compendium Aromatarium," was published in Augsburg, 1481. There is no separate copy in the British Museum, but it will be found as the "Liber Saladini" in the beautiful folio edition of the Arabic physician (Yúmanná ibn Massawáih), Joannis mesuae damasceni medico clarissimi opera, &c., de medicamentorum delectu, castigatione et usu, &c., &c., folio, Venice, 1623. The work is in the old dialogue style, consisting for the most part of question and answer. The books preceding the "Liber Saladini" also contain some observations on adulteration.

+ Francesco Redi, 1626-1697; he was at once a poet, a chemist, and a hysician.

black hellebore. He burnt 100lbs. of each and weighed the ash: black pepper yielded 5lbs. 2oz. 4drs. of ash, ginger 5lbs. 3oz. 2drs., while black hellebore burnt in the same quantity gave 4lbs. of ash. These ash percentages, as we know, are accurate. He treated the ash with water, and noticed that all the salts lixiviated, and had a peculiar and definite figure, which they kept although they were often resolved and afterwards congealed. "If in one liquid you dissolve together two or three sorts of salts of different figure, when they congeal they all resume their ancient and proper figure." He gives examples of this among mineral salts, and further states that if vitriol of cyprus, rock alum, and nitre, be dissolved, on evaporation and crystallisation the different salts can be readily detected.*

§ 29. The Honourable Robert Boyle, whose numerous writings and discoveries are well known to all scientific men, may be said in a way to have written the first treatise, the sole object of which was to make known a method of detecting adulterations. The title of his work is "Medicina Hydrostatica; or Hydrostatics applied to Materia Medica, shewing how by the weight that divers bodies used in physic have in water, one may discover whether they be genuine or adulterated," 8vo., Lond. 1690. His method of determining specific gravity was similar to that now used. He determined the specific gravity+ of pure rock crystal, which he took as a standard, comparing the specific weight of various minerals with it. He showed that impure mercury sublimate, weighed in this manner, would be deficient, and that Roman vitriol mixed with alum might also be similarly detected. He observed that there were several forms of soluble salts in plants, but always some that were cubical. Boyle also determined the percentage of ash in about forty different vegetables, and the amount of soluble ash. Boyle's was not a work of general scope, for the most part confining itself to the recommendation of a particular although widely applicable method.

An early general work on the adulteration of drugs was that of J. B. Vanden Sande, who may be called the pioneer of

* Phil. Trans., 1693, p. 281.

+ I believe that the oldest tables of specific gravity extant are those in Lord Francis Bacon's "Historia Densis et Rari," fol., Lond., 1741. A cube of gold was taken as a standard, and cubes of other substances, of a size as exactly similar as possible, were made. He was conscious, however, of the want of complete accuracy.

"Les falsifications des médicaments dévoilées, ouvrage dans lequel on enseigne les moyens de découvrir les tromperies mises en usage pour falsifier les médicaments tant simples que composées, et où on établit des règles pour s'assurer de leur bonté, ouvrage non seulement utile aux médecins, chirurgiens, apothicaires, et droguistes, mais aussi aux malades." Par. J. B. Vanden Sande,