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 hogshead was a British measure of tobacco ranging from 12 to 18 cwt and of liquid, applied to beer being equal to six firkins and to wine 63 gallons (fixed in 1423). A hogshead of brandy varied between 45 and 60 gallons during the 19th century. Research Hogshead
The Moral and Physical Thermometer was a chart produced by a Dr Lettsom, author of the once popular tract 'The Bad Effects of a Little Drop' and a fervent temperance campaigner. The chart showed a scale of the progression between temperance to intemperance of liquors with their effects in terms of well being or vices, diseases and punishments.
The scale ranged from -70 (gin, brandy, rum, whisky consumed both during the day and night) through to +70 (water) through strong beer (+10), porter (+20), wine (+30) and cider and perry (+40) offering cheerfulness, strength and nourishment when taken only at mealtimes and in moderation. Research Moral and Physical Thermometer
Yellow water lily (Nuphar lutea) or brandy bottle, is a perennial aquatic herb of the family Nymphaeaceae, with a stout creeping rhizome bearing long- stalked, broadly ovate to cordate, tough, ; leathery leaves that float on the water's surface. The flowers are large, yellow and have a smell of alcohol and grow on long stalks above the water. The fruit is a fleshy, flask-shaped (or brandy bottle shaped) capsule which has air bladders in its tissues so that it stays afloat for a while. Research Yellow Water Lily
Anne (known as Brandy Nan after her fondness for brandy) was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland from 1702 to 1714. She was born in 1664 at Twickenham and died in 1714. She was the second daughter of James II, then Duke of York and his wife Anne, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon. With her father's permission she was educated according to the principles of the English Church. In 1683 she was married to Prince George, brother to King Christian V. of Denmark. On the arrival of the Prince of Orange in 1688, Anne wished to remain with her father; but she was prevailed upon by LordChurchill (afterwards Duke of Marlborough) and his wife to join the triumphant party. She ascended the throne in 1702 following the death of William III. Her character was essentially weak, and she was governed first by Marlborough and his wife, and afterwards by Mrs. Masham. Most of the principal events of her reign are connected with the war of the Spanish Succession. The only important acquisition that England made by it was Gibraltar, which was captured in 1704. Another very important event of this reign was the union of England and Scotland under the name of Great Britain, which was accomplished in 1707. She seems to have long cherished the wish of securing the succession to her brother James, but this was frustrated by the internal dissensions of the cabinet. Grieved at the disappointment of her secret wishes, she fell into a state of weakness and lethargy, and died, on July the 20th, 1714. The reign of Anne was distinguished not only by the brilliant successes of the British arms, but also on account of the number of admirable and excellent writers who flourished at this time, among whom were Pope, Swift, and Addison. Anne bore her husband many children, all of whom died in infancy except one son, the Duke of Gloucester, who died at the age of twelve. Research Anne
James Grant was a British soldier. He was born in 1720 and died in 1806. He met with a severe defeat in command of an expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758. He commanded two brigades of British troops at Long Island, and was in command of New Jersey during the battles of Trenton and Princeton. He served as a major-general in the battles of Brandy wine and Germantown in 1777, and defeated Lee at Monmouth in 1778.
James Grant was a Scottish novelist. He was born in 1822 at Edinburgh 1822 and died in 1887. He lived in America from 1832 to 1839, in which year he returned to England, and was gazetted ensign in the 62nd Foot. He resigned his commission in 1843; began to contribute to periodical literature, and in 1846 published his first book, The Romance of War. A large number of works followed, most of them bearing marks of his military training, or based on historical events, Adventures of an Aide-de-Camp (1848), Bothwell (1851), Jane Seton (1853), Philip Rollo (1854), Frank Hilton (1855), Yellow Frigate (1855), Harry Ogilvie (1856), Lucy Arden (1859), Mary of Lorraine (1860), Dick Rodney (1861), King's Own Borderers (1865), White Cockade (1867), British Battles on Land and Sea (1873), Old and New Edinburgh (1880-1883), etc. He became a Roman Catholic in 1875. Research James Grant
Godfrey's cordial was a potent medicine first developed in the first quarter of the 18th century and formerly given to children suffering from colic or hunger pangs, particularly by the poor. It consisted of sassafras, opium, brandy or other spirits, carraway seed and treacle. Research Godfrey's Cordial
Alcohol, or ethyl alcohol,( CaHgO), is the intoxicating part of all liquids that have undergone vinous fermentation, may be extracted by distillation, and is a limpid colourless liquid, with an agreeable smell and a strong pungent taste. When brandy, whisky, and other spirituous liquors, themselves distilled from cruder materials, are redistilled, highly volatile alcohol is the first product to pass off. The alcohol thus obtained contains much extraneous matter, including water, from the first as much as 20 or 25 percent, and increasing greatly as the process continues. Charcoal and carbonate of soda put in the brandy or other liquor, partly retain the fusel-oil and acetic acid it contains. The product thus obtained by distillation is called rectified spirits or spirits of wine, and contains from 55 to 85 percent of alcohol, the rest being water. By distilling rectified spirits over carbonate of potassium, powdered quicklime, or chloride of calcium, the greater part of the water is retained, and nearly pure alcohol passes over. It is only, however, by repeated digestion with desiccating agents and subsequent distillation that the last traces of water can be removed.
The specific gravity of alcohol varies with its purity, decreasing as the quantity of water it contains decreases. This property is a convenient test of the alcoholic strength of liquors that contain only alcohol and water; but on account of the condensation that invariably takes place on the mixture of these two liquids, it can be applied only in connection with special tables of reference, or by means of an instrument specially adapted for the purpose (known as an alcoholometer.) By simple distillation the specific gravity of alcohol can scarcely be reduced below .825 at 60 degrees Fahrenheit; by rectification over chloride of calcium it may be reduced to .794; as it usually occurs it is about .820. Alcohol is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, in the proportions expressed by the formula CaHgO. Under a barometric pressure of 29.5 inches it boils at 173 degrees Fahrenheit or 78.4 degrees Centigrade; in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump it boils at ordinary temperatures. The freezing of alcohol is effected only at the very low temperature of -203 degrees Fahrenheit. Its very low freezing-point renders it valuable for use in thermometers suited for very low temperatures.
Alcohol vapour is extremely inflammable, and burns with a pale-blue flame, scarcely visible in bright daylight. It occasions no carbonaceous deposit upon substances held over it, and the products of its combustion are carbon dioxide and water. The steady and uniform heat which it produces during combustion makes it a valuable material for lamps. It dissolves the vegetable acids, the volatile oils, the resins, extractive matters, and many of the soaps; the greater number of the fixed oils are taken up by it in small quantities only, but some are dissolved largely. When alcohol is submitted to distillation with certain acids a peculiar compound is formed, called ether. It is alcohol which gives all intoxicating liquors the property whence they are so called. Alcohol acts strongly on the nervous system, and though in small doses it is stimulating and exhilarating, in large doses it acts as a poison. In medicine it is often of great service.
The name alcohol is also applied in chemistry to a large group of compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, whose chemical properties are analogous to those of common or ethylic alcohol. Research Alcohol
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Adulteration
