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
The Bean-king was the person chosen king in former Twelfth Night festivities in virtue of having got the piece of cake containing the bean buried in the cake for this purpose. Research Bean-King
Coumarin is a vegetable proximate principle, obtained from the Dipterix odordta or Tonka bean, sweet woodruff, sweet-scented vernalgrass, melilot, etc. It has a pleasant aromatic odour, and a burning taste. It is used in perfumery, in medicine, and to give flavour to certain varieties of Swiss cheese. Research Coumarin
A diphthong is a coalition or union of two vowels pronounced in one syllable. In uttering a proper diphthong both vowels are pronounced; the sound is not simple, but the two sounds are so blended as to be considered as forming one syllable, as in void, tough. The term improper diphthong is applied to the union in one syllable of two or more vowels, of which only one is sounded, as in bean. Research Diphthong
Twelfth Day is the festival of Epiphany, being the twelfth day after Christmas, it is kept as the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. It was formerly the occasion for festivities in commemoration of the visit of the three kings to the infantJesus. A king (the beanking) of the feast was chosen by a bean hidden in the twelfth Cake. Research Twelfth Day
Aphis is a genus of insects (called plant-lice) of the order Hemiptera, the type of the family Aphides. The species are very numerous and destructive. The Aphis rosae lives on the rose; the Aphis fabae on the bean; the Aphis humuli is injurious to the hop, the Aphis granaria to cereals, the Aphis lanigera or woolly aphis equally so to apple-trees. The aphides are furnished with an inflected beak, and feelers longer than the thorax. In the same species some individuals have four erect wings and others are entirely without wings. The feet are of the ambulatory kind, and the abdomen usually ends in two horn-like tubes, from which is ejected the substance called honey-dew, a favourite food of ants. The aphides illustrate parthenogenesis; hermaphrodite forms produced from eggs produce viviparous wingless forms, which again produce others like themselves, and thus multiply during summer, one individual giving rise to millions. Winged sexual forms appear late in autumn, the females of which, being impregnated by the males, produce eggs. Research Aphis
The bean-goose (Anser segetum) is a species of wild goose, a migratory bird which arrives in Britain in autumn and retires to the north in the end of April, though some few remain to breed. Being rather less than the common wild goose, it is sometimes called the small grey goose. Research Bean-Goose
Abbreviations
Research Adulteration
