Adulteration is a term not only applied in its proper sense to the fraudulent mixture of articles of commerce, food, drink, drugs, seeds, etc, with noxious or inferior ingredients, but also by magistrates and analysts to accidental impurity, and even in some cases to actual substitution.
The chief objects of adulteration are to increase the weight or volume of the article, to give a colour which either makes a good article more pleasing to the eye or else disguises an inferior one, to substitute a cheaper form of the article, or the same substance from which the strength has been extracted, or to give it a false strength.
Among the adulterations which were commonly practised around 1905 for the purpose of fraudulently increasing the weight or volume of an article are the following: Bread was adulterated with alum or sulphate of copper, which gives solidity to the gluten of damaged or inferior flour; with chalk or carbonate of soda to correct the acidity of such flour; and with boiled rice or potatoes, which enables the bread to carry more water, and thus to produce a larger number of loaves from a given quantity of flour. Wheatflour is adulterated with other inferior flours, as the flour from rice, bean, Indian-corn, potato, and with sulphate of lime, alum, etc. Milk was usually adulterated with water. The adulterations generally present in butter consisted of an undue proportion of salt and water, lard, tallow, and other fats; when of poor quality it was frequently coloured with a little annatto, and, at times, with the juice of carrots. Genuine butter should not contain less than 80 percent of butter-fat. Cheese was also coloured with annatto and other substances. Tea was adulterated chiefly in China with sand, iron-filings, chalk, gypsum, Chinaclay, exhausted tea leaves, and the leaves of the sycamore, horse-chestnut, and plum, whilst colour and weight were added by black-lead, indigo, Prussian-blue (one of the deleterious ingredients used by the Chinese in converting the lowest qualities of black into green teas), gum, turmeric, soapstone, catechu, and other substances.
Confections were adulterated with flour and sulphate of lime. Preserved vegetables were kept green and poisoned by salts of copper. The acridity of mustard is commonly reduced by flour, and the colour of the compound is improved by turmeric. Pepper was adulterated with linseed-meal, flour, mustard husks, etc. Colour was given to pickles by salts of copper, acetate of copper, etc. Ale was adulterated with common salt, Cocculus Indicus, grains of paradise, quassia, and other bitters, sulphate of iron, alum, etc. Porter and stout were mixed with sugar, treacle, salt, and an excess of water. Brandy was diluted with water, and burned sugar was added to improve the colour; sometimes bad whisky was flavoured and coloured so as to resemble brandy, and sold under its name.
Gin was mixed with excess of water, and flavouring matters of various kinds, with alum and tartar, were added. Rum was diluted with water, and the flavour and colour kept up by the addition of cayenne and burned sugar. For champagnegooseberry and other inferior wines were often substituted. Port was manufactured from red Cape and other inferior wines, the body, flavour, strength, and colour being produced by gum-dragon, the washings of brandy casks, and a preparation of German bilberries. Cheap brown sherry was mixed with Cape and other low-priced brandies, and was flavoured with the washings of brandy casks, sugar-candy, and bitter almonds. Pale sherries were produced by gypsum, by a process called plastering, which removes the natural acids as well as the colour of the wine. Other wines were adulterated with elderberry, logwood, Brazil-wood, cudbear, red beetroot, etc, for colour; with lime or carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda, carbonate of potash, and litharge, to correct acidity; with catechu, sloe-leaves, and oak-bark for astringency; with sulphate of lime and alum for removing colour; with cane-sugar for giving sweetness and body; with alcohol for fortifying; and with ether, especially acetic ether, for giving bouquet and flavour.
Medicines, such as jalap, opium, rhubarb, cinchonabark, scammony, aloes, sarsaparilla, squills, etc, were mixed with various foreign substances. Castor-oil has been adulterated with other oils; and inferior oils were often. mixed with cod-liver oil. Cantharides were often mixed with golden-beetle and also artificially-coloured glass.
The adulteration of seeds was largely practised also, the seed which forms the adulterant being of course of the most worthless kind that can be had. Thus turnip-seed was mixed with rape, wild mustard, or charlock, which are steamed and kiln-dried to destroy their vitality, so as to evade detection in the progress of growth; old and useless turnip-seed was also used fraudulently mixed with fresh seeds. Clover was also much mixed with plantain and mere weeds.
Acts against adulteration have been passed in various countries and at various times. In Britain there was a law against it as early as 1267. Research Adulteration
Angostura Bark is the aromatic bitter medicinal bark obtained chiefly from Galipea officindlis, a tree of between three and six metres high, growing in the northern regions of South America, of the natural order Rutaceae. The bark is valuable as a tonic and febrifuge, and is also used for a kind of bitters (Angostura bitters). From this bark being adulterated, indeed sometimes entirely replaced, by the poisonous bark of Strychnos Nux Vomica, its use as a medicine had been almost given up by around 1900. Research Angostura Bark
Bast is the inner bark of exogenous trees, especially of thel ime or linden, consisting of several layers of fibres. The manufacture of bast into mats, ropes, shoes, etc, was in some districts of Russia a considerable branch of industry, bast mate, used for packing- furniture, covering' plants in gardens, etc, being exported in large quantities during the 19th century. Though the term is usually restricted, many of the most important fibres of former commerce, such as hemp, flax, jute, etc, were the products of bast or liber. Research Bast
Bird-lime is a viscous substance used for entangling birds so as to make them easily caught, twigs being for this purpose smeared with it at places where birds resort. It is prepared from holly-bark, being extracted by boiling; also - mainly in Italy - from the viscid berries of the mistletoe.
Bird-lime was traditionally prepared from holly-bark which was boiled for between ten and twelve hours, where upon the green bark becoming seperated from the rest, it was covered over and left in a moist place for two weeks and then pounded into a rough paste so that no woody fibres were discernable, and then washed in ruunning water. After washing the holly-bark bird-line was left to ferment for four or five days, being regularly skimmed to remove any surface waste, and was then ready for use. Before use, two parts of holly-bark birdlime were mixed with one part nut-oil or grease, and mixed together while being warmed over a fire. Research Bird-Lime
Budding is the art of multiplying plants by causing the leaf-bud of one species or variety to grow upon the branch of another. The operation consists in shaving off a leaf-bud, with a portion of the wood beneath it, which portion is afterwards removed by a sudden jerk of the operator's finger and thumb, aided by the budding-knife. An incision in the bark of the stock is then made in the form of a T; the two side lips are pushed aside, the bud is thrust between the bark and the wood, the upper end of its bark is cut to a level with the cross arm of the T, and the whole is bound up with worsted or other soft fastening, the point of the bud being left exposed.
In performing the operation, a knife with a thin flat handle and a blade with a peculiar edge is required. The bud must be fully formed; the bark of the stock must separate readily from the wood below it; and young branches should always be chosen, as having beneath the bark the largest quantity of cambium or viscid matter out of which tissue is formed. The maturer shoots of the year in which the operation is performed are the best. The autumn is the best time for budding, though it may also be practised in the spring. Research Budding
Cork is the external bark of a species of oak (Quercus suber) which grows in Spain, Portugal, and other southern parts of Europe and in the north of Africa, and is distinguished by the great thickness and sponginess of its bark, and by the leaves being evergreen, rectangular, somewhat oval, downy underneath, and waved. The outer bark falls off of itself if left alone, but for commercial purposes it is stripped off when judged sufficiently matured, this being when the tree has reached the age of from fifteen to thirty years. The first stripping yields the coarsest kind of bark. In the course of eight or nine years, or even less, the same tree will yield another supply of cork of better quality, and the removal of this outer bark is said to be beneficial, the trees thus stripped reaching the age of 150 years or more. The bark is removed by a kind of axe, parallel cuts being carried round the tree transversely and united by others in a longitudinal direction, so as to produce rectangular sheets of bark. These vary in thickness between 2 mm and 7 mm. Care must be taken not to cut into the inner bark, or the tree would be killed. The pieces of cork are flattened out by heat or by weights, and are slightly charred on the surface to close the pores.
Cork is light, elastic, impervious to water, and by pressure can be greatly reduced in bulk, returning again to its original size. These qualities render it peculiarly serviceable for the stopping of vessels of different kinds, and formerly for floats, buoys, swimming-belts or jackets, artificial limbs, etc. Corks for bottles are cut either by hand or by means of a machine. The best corks are cut across the grain. Research Cork
Culilawan Bark (clove-bark) is a valuable aromatic pungent bark, the produce of a kind of cinnamon tree, Cinnamomum Culilawan, a tree of the Moluccas, useful in indigestion, diarrhoea, etc. Research Culilawan Bark
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Research Adulteration
