The Globe. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1874.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 3, 3 June 1874, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1874.

The subject of the adulteration of food has not yet occupied the attention of the public of Canterbury to any groat degree, and probably very few persons are at all aware of the extent to which this most pernicious practice is indulged in. The “ Adulteration Act ” in England, is now being carried out as strictly as is possible, and the numerous cases, in which heavy fines are imposed on tradesmen, convicted of selling goods, which are proved to contain foreign ingredients, show that the public there, are fully alive to the importance of the question. There is hardly one article in general daily use in our household which does not suffer from the manipulation of dishonest traders. To say nothing of the common practice of watering milk, which may be dismissed as comparatively harmless, we have our flour mixed with alum and potatoes, and what a large portion of the tea which arrives here, consists of, would puzzle Dr Hassall himself to find out.

In the category of oilmen’s stores, all of which are imported here, it would be hard to find one single line, in which adulteration has not been proved over and over again in England. Take a few of the following instances.

Arrowroot —50 samples ; 22 adulterated. In ten of them scarcely a particle of the genuine article. Mustard —42 samples ; all adulterated.

Mixed Spices —26 samples ; 16 adulterated,

These are merely taken at random from a list which is too long for us to quote, but it helps to show how general the practice we speak of is. But the evil does not even end here, as the following extract will prove: — “ A meeting of chemists and drug- “ gists has been held at the offices of “ the National Chamber of Trade, “ when resolutions were passed charac- “ terizing as harsh and unfair the “ recent conviction for

“ selling citrate of magnesia alleged to “ have been adulterated, and asking “ Parliament to repeal that portion of “ the Adulteration Act which relates “to drugs and chemicals.” What would the chemists—druggists, we mean —ask for next? Nothing can really be more insolent than this determination to ask permission to sell adulterated drugs and chemicals. The thing is monstrous. We can manage to live on while eating adulterated food, and to keep out the cold with shoddified clothes; but, when we are sick and ask for medicine’s aid, in the name of justice surely we deserve to have, or ought to have, pure drugs! Speaking from our own experience, we can say that a prescription made up at the ordinary chemist’s means one thing, and that made up at Apothecaries’ Hall another. Ugh! As if physic were not nasty enough that it must suffer from the adulterator’s art. There are clauses in thePublicHealth Act, which, if strictly carried out, would in a short time result in the conviction of any one who is guilty of adulteration, and dishonest tradesmen would be taught a lesson which they well deserve. We hope to see a subject of such importance to the general community, taken up by the Council during its present session.