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A

TREATISE

ON

ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD,

_AND CULINARY POISONS_.

EXHIBITING

The Fraudulent Sophistications of

BREAD, BEER, WINE, SPIRITOUS LIQUORS, TEA, COFFEE, CREAM, CONFECTIONERY, VINEGAR, MUSTARD, PEPPER, CHEESE, OLIVE OIL, PICKLES,

AND OTHER ARTICLES EMPLOYED IN DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

AND

METHODS OF DETECTING THEM.

_By Fredrick Accum_,

OPERATIVE CHEMIST, AND MEMBER OF THE PRINCIPAL ACADEMIES AND SOCIETIES OF ARTS AND SCIENCES IN EUROPE.

Philadelphia: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY AB'M SMALL 1820.

PREFACE.

This Treatise, as its title expresses, is intended to exhibit easy methods of detecting the fraudulent adulterations of food, and of other articles, classed either among the necessaries or luxuries of the table; and to put the unwary on their guard against the use of such commodities as are contaminated with substances deleterious to health.

Every person is aware that bread, beer, wine, and other substances employed in domestic economy, are frequently met with in an adulterated state: and the late convictions of numerous individuals for counterfeiting and adulterating tea, coffee, bread, beer, pepper, and other articles of diet, are still fresh in the memory of the public.

To such perfection of ingenuity has the system of counterfeiting and adulterating various commodities of life arrived in this country, that spurious articles are every where to be found in the market, made up so skilfully, as to elude the discrimination of the most experienced judges.

But of all possible nefarious traffic and deception, practised by mercenary dealers, that of adulterating the articles intended for human food with ingredients deleterious to health, is the most criminal, and, in the mind of every honest man, must excite feelings of regret and disgust. Numerous facts are on record, of human food, contaminated with poisonous ingredients, having been vended to the public; and the annals of medicine record tragical events ensuing from the use of such food.

The eager and insatiable thirst for gain, is proof against prohibitions and penalties; and the possible sacrifice of a fellow-creature's life, is a secondary consideration among unprincipled dealers.

However invidious the office may appear, and however painful the duty may be, of exposing the names of individuals, who have been convicted of adulterating food; yet it was necessary, for the verification of my statement, that cases should be adduced in their support; and I have carefully avoided citing any, except those which are authenticated in Parliamentary documents and other public records.

To render this Treatise still more useful, I have also animadverted on certain material errors, sometimes unconsciously committed through accident or ignorance, in private families, during the preparation of various articles of food, and of delicacies for the table.

In stating the experimental proceedings necessary for the detection of the frauds which it has been my object to expose, I have confined myself to the task of pointing out such operations only as may be performed by persons unacquainted with chemical science; and it has been my purpose to express all necessary rules and instructions in the plainest language, divested of those recondite terms of science, which would be out of place in a work intended for general perusal.

The design of the Treatise will be fully answered, if the views here given should induce a single reader to pursue the object for which it is published; or if it should tend to impress on the mind of the Public the magnitude of an evil, which, in many cases, prevails to an extent so alarming, that we may exclaim with the sons of the Prophet,

"_THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT._"

For the abolition of such nefarious practices, it is the interest of all classes of the community to co-operate.

FREDRICK ACCUM.

LONDON. 1820.

CONTENTS.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE ADULTERATION OF FOOD _Page_ 13

EFFECT OF DIFFERENT KINDS OF WATER EMPLOYED IN DOMESTIC ECONOMY 33

_Characters of Good Water_ 37

_Chemical Constitution of the Waters used in Domestic Economy and the Arts_ 40

_Rain Water_ 40 _Snow Water_ 41 _Spring Water_ 42 _River Water_ 44

_Substances usually contained in Common Water, and Tests by which they are detected_ 48

_Method of ascertaining the Quantity of each of the different Substances usually contained in Common Water_ 54

_Deleterious Effects of keeping Water for Domestic Economy, in Leaden Reservoirs_ 60

_Method of detecting Lead, when contained in common Water_ 69

ADULTERATION OF WINE 74

_Method of detecting the Deleterious Adulterations of Wine_ 86

_Specific Differences, and Component Parts of Wine_ 89

_Easy process of ascertaining the Quantity of Brandy contained in various sorts of Wine_ 92

_Tabular View, exhibiting the Per Centage of Brandy or Alcohol contained in various kinds of Wine and other fermented Liquors_ 94

_Constitution of Home-made Wines_ 96

ADULTERATION OF BREAD 98

_Method of detecting the Presence of Alum in Bread_ 108

_Easy Method of judging of the Goodness of Bread-Corn and Bread-Flour_ 110

ADULTERATION OF BEER 113

_List of Druggists and Grocers, prosecuted and convicted for supplying illegal Ingredients to Brewers for Adulterating Beer_ 119

_Porter_ 121

_Strength and Specific Differences of different kinds of Porter_ 125

_List of Publicans prosecuted and convicted for adulterating Beer with illegal Ingredients, and for mixing Table Beer with their Strong Beer_ 129

_Illegal Substances used for adulterating Beer_ 131

_Ingredients seized at various Breweries and Brewers' Druggists, for adulterating Beer_ 136

_List of Brewers prosecuted and convicted for adulterating Strong Beer with Table Beer_ 143

_Old, or Entire Beer; and New or Mild Beer_ 144

_List of Brewers prosecuted and convicted for receiving and using illegal Ingredients in their Brewings_ 151

_Method of detecting the Adulteration of Beer_ 158

_Method of ascertaining the Quantity of Spirit contained in Porter, Ale, &c._ 160

_Per Centage of Alcohol contained in Porter, and other kinds of Malt Liquors_ 162

COUNTERFEIT TEA-LEAVES 163

_Methods of detecting the Adulterations of Tea-Leaves_ 171

COUNTERFEIT COFFEE 176

ADULTERATION OF BRANDY, RUM, AND GIN 187

_Method of detecting the Adulterations of Brandy, Rum, and Malt Spirit_ 195

_Method of detecting the Presence of Lead in Spiritous Liquors_ 202

_Method of ascertaining the Quantity of Alcohol contained in different kinds of Spiritous Liquors_ 203

_Table exhibiting the Per Centage of Alcohol contained in various kinds of Spiritous Liquors_ 205

POISONOUS CHEESE, _and method of detecting it_ 206

COUNTERFEIT PEPPER, _and Method of detecting it_ 211

_White Pepper, and method of manufacturing it_ 213

POISONOUS CAYENNE PEPPER, _and method of detecting it_ 215

POISONOUS PICKLES, _and method of detecting them_ 217

ADULTERATION OF VINEGAR, _and method of detecting it_ 220

_Distilled Vinegar_ 221

ADULTERATION OF CREAM, _and method of detecting it_ 222

POISONOUS CONFECTIONERY, _and method of detecting it_ 224

POISONOUS CATSUP, _and method of detecting it_ 227

POISONOUS CUSTARDS 231

POISONOUS ANCHOVY SAUCE, _and method of detecting it_ 234

ADULTERATION OF LOZENGES, _and method of detecting them_ 236

POISONOUS OLIVE OIL, _and method of detecting it_ 239

ADULTERATION OF MUSTARD 241

ADULTERATION OF LEMON ACID, _and method of detecting it_ 243

POISONOUS MUSHROOMS 246

_Mushroom catsup_ 250

POISONOUS SODA WATER, _and method of detecting it_ 251

FOOD POISONED BY COPPER VESSELS, _and method of detecting it_ 252

FOOD POISONED BY LEADEN VESSELS, _and method of detecting it_ 257

INDEX 261

A

TREATISE

ON

ADULTERATIONS OF FOOD,

AND

CULINARY POISONS.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

Of all the frauds practised by mercenary dealers, there is none more reprehensible, and at the same time more prevalent, than the sophistication of the various articles of food.

This unprincipled and nefarious practice, increasing in degree as it has been found difficult of detection, is now applied to almost every commodity which can be classed among either the necessaries or the luxuries of life, and is carried on to a most alarming extent in every part of the United Kingdom.

It has been pursued by men, who, from the magnitude and apparent respectability of their concerns, would be the least obnoxious to public suspicion; and their successful example has called forth, from among the retail dealers, a multitude of competitors in the same iniquitous course.

To such perfection of ingenuity has this system of adulterating food arrived, that spurious articles of various kinds are every where to be found, made up so skilfully as to baffle the discrimination of the most experienced judges.

Among the number of substances used in domestic economy which are now very generally found sophisticated, may be distinguished--tea, coffee, bread, beer, wine, spiritous liquors, salad oil, pepper, vinegar, mustard, cream, and other articles of subsistence.

Indeed, it would be difficult to mention a single article of food which is not to be met with in an adulterated state; and there are some substances which are scarcely ever to be procured genuine.

Some of these spurious compounds are comparatively harmless when used as food; and as in these cases merely substances of inferior value are substituted for more costly and genuine ingredients, the sophistication, though it may affect our purse, does not injure our health. Of this kind are the manufacture of factitious pepper, the adulterations of mustard, vinegar, cream, &c. Others, however, are highly deleterious; and to this class belong the adulterations of beer, wines, spiritous liquors, pickles, salad oil, and many others.

There are particular chemists who make it a regular trade to supply drugs or nefarious preparations to the unprincipled brewer of porter or ale; others perform the same office to the wine and spirit merchant; and others again to the grocer and the oilman. The operators carry on their processes chiefly in secresy, and under some delusive firm, with the ostensible denotements of a fair and lawful establishment.

These illicit pursuits have assumed all the order and method of a regular trade; they may severally claim to be distinguished as an _art and mystery_; for the workmen employed in them are often wholly ignorant of the nature of the substances which pass through their hands, and of the purposes to which they are ultimately applied.

To elude the vigilance of the inquisitive, to defeat the scrutiny of the revenue officer, and to ensure the secresy of these mysteries, the processes are very ingeniously divided and subdivided among individual operators, and the manufacture is purposely carried on in separate establishments. The task of proportioning the ingredients for use is assigned to one individual, while the composition and preparation of them may be said to form a distinct part of the business, and is entrusted to another workman. Most of the articles are transmitted to the consumer in a disguised state, or in such a form that their real nature cannot possibly be detected by the unwary. Thus the extract of _coculus indicus_, employed by fraudulent manufacturers of malt-liquors to impart an intoxicating quality to porter or ales, is known in the market by the name of _black extract_, ostensibly destined for the use of tanners and dyers. It is obtained by boiling the berries of the coculus indicus in water, and converting, by a subsequent evaporation, this decoction into a stiff black tenacious mass, possessing, in a high degree, the narcotic and intoxicating quality of the poisonous berry from which it is prepared. Another substance, composed of extract of quassia and liquorice juice, used by fraudulent brewers to economise both malt and hops, is technically called _multum_.[1]

The quantities of coculus indicus berries, as well as of black extract, imported into this country for adulterating malt liquors, are enormous. It forms a considerable branch of commerce in the hands of a few brokers: yet, singular as it may seem, no inquiry appears to have been hitherto made by the officers of the revenue respecting its application. Many other substances employed in the adulteration of beer, ale, and spiritous liquors, are in a similar manner intentionally disguised; and of the persons by whom they are purchased, a great number are totally unacquainted with their nature or composition.

An extract, said to be innocent, sold in casks, containing from half a cwt. to five cwt. by the brewers' druggists, under the name of _bittern_, is composed of calcined sulphate of iron (copperas), extract of coculus indicus berries, extract of quassia, and Spanish liquorice.

It would be very easy to adduce, in support of these remarks, the testimony of numerous individuals, by whom I have been professionally engaged to examine certain mixtures, said to be perfectly innocent, which are used in very extensive manufactories of the above description. Indeed, during the long period devoted to the practice of my profession, I have had abundant reason to be convinced that a vast number of dealers, of the highest respectability, have vended to their customers articles absolutely poisonous, which they themselves considered as harmless, and which they would not have offered for sale, had they been apprised of the spurious and pernicious nature of the compounds, and of the purposes to which they were destined.

For instance, I have known cases in which brandy merchants were not aware that the substance which they frequently purchase under the delusive name of _flash_, for strengthening and clarifying spiritous liquors, and which is held out as consisting of burnt sugar and isinglass only, in the form of an extract, is in reality a compound of sugar, with extract of capsicum; and that to the acrid and pungent qualities of the capsicum is to be ascribed the heightened flavour of brandy and rum, when coloured with the above-mentioned matter.

In other cases the ale-brewer has been supplied with ready-ground coriander seeds, previously mixed with a portion of _nux vomica_ and quassia, to give a bitter taste and narcotic property to the beverage.

The retail venders of mustard do not appear to be aware that mustard seed alone cannot produce, when ground, a powder of so intense and brilliant a colour as that of the common mustard of commerce. Nor would the powder of real mustard, when mixed with salt and water, without the addition of a portion of pulverised capsicum, keep for so long a time as the mustard usually offered for sale.

Many other instances of unconscious deceptions might be mentioned, which were practised by persons of upright and honourable minds.

It is a painful reflection, that the division of labour which has been so instrumental in bringing the manufactures of this country to their present flourishing state, should have also tended to conceal and facilitate the fraudulent practices in question; and that from a correspondent ramification of commerce into a multitude of distinct branches, particularly in the metropolis and the large towns of the empire, the traffic in adulterated commodities should find its way through so many circuitous channels, as to defy the most scrutinising endeavour to trace it to its source.

It is not less lamentable that the extensive application of chemistry to the useful purposes of life, should have been perverted into an auxiliary to this nefarious traffic. But, happily for the science, it may, without difficulty, be converted into a means of detecting the abuse; to effect which, very little chemical skill is required; and the course to be pursued forms the object of the following pages.

The baker asserts that he does not put alum into bread; but he is well aware that, in purchasing a certain quantity of flour, he must take a sack of _sharp whites_ (a term given to flour contaminated with a quantity of alum), without which it would be impossible for him to produce light, white, and porous bread, from a half-spoiled material.

The wholesale mealman frequently purchases this spurious commodity, (which forms a separate branch of business in the hands of certain individuals,) in order to enable himself to sell his decayed and half-spoiled flour.

Other individuals furnish the baker with alum mixed up with salt, under the obscure denomination of _stuff_. There are wholesale manufacturing chemists, whose sole business is to crystallise alum, in such a form as will adapt this salt to the purpose of being mixed in a crystalline state with the crystals of common salt, to disguise the character of the compound. The mixture called _stuff_, is composed of one part of alum, in minute crystals, and three of common salt. In many other trades a similar mode of proceeding prevails. Potatoes are soaked in water to augment their weight.

The practice of sophisticating the necessaries of life, being reduced to systematic regularity, is ranked by public opinion among other mercantile pursuits; and is not only regarded with less disgust than formerly, but is almost generally esteemed as a justifiable way to wealth.

It is really astonishing that the penal law is not more effectually enforced against practices so inimical to the public welfare. The man who robs a fellow subject of a few shillings on the high-way, is sentenced to death; while he who distributes a slow poison to a whole community, escapes unpunished.

It has been urged by some, that, under so vast a system of finance as that of Great Britain, it is expedient that the revenue should be collected in large amounts; and therefore that the severity of the law should be relaxed in favour of all mercantile concerns in proportion to their extent: encouragement must be given to large capitalists; and where an extensive brewery or distillery yields an important contribution to the revenue, no strict scrutiny need be adopted in regard to the quality of the article from which such contribution is raised, provided the excise do not suffer by the fraud.

But the principles of the constitution afford no sanction to this preference, and the true interests of the country require that it should be abolished; for a tax dependent upon deception must be at best precarious, and must be, sooner or later, diminished by the irresistible diffusion of knowledge. Sound policy requires that the law should be impartially enforced in all cases; and if its penalties were extended to abuses of which it does not now take cognisance, there is no doubt that the revenue would be abundantly benefited.

Another species of fraud, to which I shall at present but briefly advert, and which has increased to so alarming an extent, that it loudly calls for the interference of government, is the adulteration of drugs and medicines.

Nine-tenths of the most potent drugs and chemical preparations used in pharmacy, are vended in a sophisticated state by dealers who would be the last to be suspected. It is well known, that of the article Peruvian bark, there is a variety of species inferior to the genuine; that too little discrimination is exercised by the collectors of this precious medicament; that it is carelessly assorted, and is frequently packed in green hides; that much of it arrives in Spain in a half-decayed state, mixed with fragments of other vegetables and various extraneous substances; and in this state is distributed throughout Europe.

But as if this were not a sufficient deterioration, the public are often served with a spurious compound of mahogany saw-dust and oak wood, ground into powder mixed with a proportion of good quinquina, and sold as genuine bark powder.

Every chemist knows that there are mills constantly at work in this metropolis, which furnish bark powder at a much cheaper rate than the substance can be procured for in its natural state. The price of the best genuine bark, upon an average, is not lower than twelve shillings the pound; but immense quantities of powder bark are supplied to the apothecaries at three or four shillings a pound.

It is also notorious that there are manufacturers of spurious rhubarb powder, ipecacuanha powder,[2] James's powder; and other simple and compound medicines of great potency, who carry on their diabolical trade on an amazingly large scale. Indeed, the quantity of medical preparations thus sophisticated exceeds belief. Cheapness, and not genuineness and excellence, is the grand desideratum with the unprincipled dealers in drugs and medicines.

Those who are familiar with chemistry may easily convince themselves of the existence of the fraud, by subjecting to a chemical examination either spirits of hartshorn, magnesia, calcined magnesia, calomel, or any other chemical preparation in general demand.

Spirit of hartshorn is counterfeited by mixing liquid caustic ammonia with the distilled spirit of hartshorn, to increase the pungency of its odour, and to enable it to bear an addition of water.

The fraud is detected by adding spirit of wine to the sophisticated spirit; for, if no considerable coagulation ensues, the adulteration is proved. It may also be discovered by the hartshorn spirit not producing a brisk effervescence when mixed with muriatic or nitric acid.

Magnesia usually contains a portion of lime, originating from hard water being used instead of soft, in the preparation of this medicine.