That bottle was a sample of thousands of adulterated or entirely
spurious "foods" for which American men and women had been for a long
time spending good money in the belief that they were getting what they
paid for.
A quarter of a century ago the food poisoners and adulterators spread a
net of fraud across the United States, the like of which the world had
never seen; and for a long time the American public, with the meekness
(up to a certain point!) for which it has become notorious, submitted
to this abuse, eating the drugged food and suffering the daily pangs
of indigestion, wondering vaguely what was the matter--why Europeans
found us a nation of dyspeptics--and paying fortunes to doctors, and
to vendors of patent medicines, without being able to avert the final
general breakdown.
Then something occurred which made the worm turn on its tormentors--the
"embalmed beef" incident.
Major-General Miles, backed up by other officers, declared positively
that most of the canned beef supplied to our soldiers during the war
with Spain was unfit for human food, and that he was convinced that
the refrigerated beef supplied was highly deleterious because of the
introduction of chemicals for preservative purposes. The court which
investigated these charges, while admitting some of the alleged evils,
indulged, many people thought, in whitewashing; so the public at last
made up its mind that "something was rotten in the state of Denmark."
Particularly was it impressed by the statement that the food supplied
to the army was "not different from that generally sold to the public."
That admission made people ask themselves: "What, then, are _we_
eating?"
The result was a general awakening and investigation, a countrywide
search which revealed the shocking fact that the community was
harboring thousands of seemingly respectable citizens who were piling
up fortunes by plying the deadly trade of modern Borgias, slaughtering
infants and invalids and making even the robust feel uncomfortable most
of the time.
The chemicals used were formalin, boric and salicylic acid,
fluo-sylicate of ammonium, aniline dyes, and a number of secret
compounds that were sold to packers and dealers, enabling them to
doctor spoiled meats and other foods in such a way as to deceive the
purchaser and consumer into thinking them fresh and wholesome.
To realize the full extent of this nefarious traffic one has to go
back to the newspaper reports of the investigations and food tests,
especially in the year 1899, after the "embalmed beef" inquiry. I have
before me clippings that would fill fifty pages with gruesome details;
but a mere peep into this culinary chamber of horrors must suffice.
"The use of antiseptics as preservatives is becoming alarmingly great,"
declared Prof. A. S. Mitchell, analytical chemist of the Wisconsin
Dairy and Food Commission, before the Senatorial Committee on Pure
Food Investigation. Among the preservatives he named was a liquid
called "freezene," which he said, was almost pure formic-aldehyde, the
substance that several chemists at the military inquiry had claimed
to have found in the beef furnished the army. It acts disastrously
upon the tissues of the stomach, but was often put into the milk and
butter supplied to families. Butchers employed freely, especially
in "Hamburger steaks," sulphite of soda, which not merely arrests
digestion, but is, as another Government expert remarked, practically
the same he had used as a medical student to preserve corpses, and
later to disinfect houses where smallpox patients had lived.
The New York "Herald" of June 4, 1899, contained a page and a half of
exposures, with these headlines:
POISON AND ADULTERATION FOUND IN ALL FOOD PURCHASED BY THE "HERALD."
FORTY SAMPLES ANALYZED AND NOT ONE OF THEM WHAT IT PURPORTED TO BE. TEA
THAT CONTAINED ALMOST EVERYTHING BUT TEA LEAVES. SOME FACTS THAT EVERY
HOUSE-KEEPER SHOULD KNOW. THE CITY AUTHORITIES DO LITTLE.
One of the samples of what was sold as "tea" was "composed of refuse of
many kinds--hair, mouldy leaves from everything that grows but the tea
plant." Another sample contained "dust, seed-pods, foreign woody stems,
and unidentified refuse."
To cite one more of the two-score analyses made by the "Herald's"
expert (James C. Duff, consulting chemist to the New York Produce
Exchange): "The sample of American macaroni contains artificial yellow
coloring matter, egg-yolk color, composed of flour and the coloring
matter. This coloring matter has as its base chrome colors--substances
very poisonous. The genuine Italian macaroni contains nothing injurious
to health."
"Reports from analysts in other cities show that 92 per cent. of
the allspice examined is adulterated, 50 per cent. of cinnamon, 60
per cent. of ginger, 100 per cent. of mustard, and 70 per cent. of
pepper.... It is a matter of record that the demand for the materials
for adulteration has called into existence a branch of manufacturing
industry having for its sole object the production of articles
known as 'spice mixtures' or 'pepper dust.' They are sold by the
barrel as 'P. D. ginger,' 'P. D. pepper,' or 'P. D. cloves.' These
manufacturers openly advertise themselves as 'assorters and renovators
of merchandise....'"
The New York "Tribune" printed a report of an address made by a
representative of the Benchmen's Association of Retail Butchers who
said, regarding the upper West Side: "Decayed meats are chemically
treated to counteract odor and outer discoloration and are hawked on
the street corners on Saturday nights. The shoppers of that locality
are after something cheap, and here they get it. Resulting illness is
ascribed to a mysterious Providence or anything rather than the 'nice
tender broilers, two for a quarter,' that they had for Sunday's dinner.
The police say the matter is one for the Health Department, and the
Health Department refers your complaints to its inspectors. These are
paid from $1,200 to $1,400 a year, and to my positive knowledge not one
of them has entered our shops for the last seven years. For all the
Health Department knows, we might have been selling spoiled meat all
that time."
A Philadelphian investigator of adulterated food, H. Wharton Amberling,
wrote: "There has been adulteration for ages. It is born of the same
parentage as robbery, perjury, arson and murder. It has grown in
enormity because the law has not dealt with it as it has with other
crimes. The rapid progress of chemistry has attained most grateful
accomplishments, but the leprous hand of adulteration is using it to
fill our blood with the poison of disease and death."
"It is estimated," said the New York "Evening Post," "that the people
of the United States spend no less than five billion dollars a year
for food and that nine-tenths of this money is paid for articles of
food which are more or less adulterated. All food adulterations are
not injurious, though a great majority of them, probably nine-tenths,
are so, in greater or less degree.... The art of adulterating food
has been carried to a very fine point by American ingenuity and has
proved immensely profitable to those who practise it, while it has
undoubtedly worked great damage to the general health.... It is a wise
man who knows what he is eating nowadays."
[Illustration: A matter for the Health Department]
A report of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station called
attention to the fact that eighty-nine samples of tea were all found
pure as a result of the federal law of 1897, which established a board
of seven experts to enforce the statute and forbade importation of the
adulterated article.
The American products were on the other hand in a woeful condition.
Sixty-three samples of fruit jelly examined showed adulteration in
two-thirds of the cases by starch, glucose, aniline dyes, and salicylic
acid. Pure jellies cost 25 cents a pound while these artificial
jellies cost but five cents. Out of 40 samples of marmalades and jams
only three were pure. Examination of nineteen samples of sausages and
oysters showed "embalming" by boric acid.