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
Bath is the immersion of the body in water, or an apparatus for this purpose. The use of the bath as an institution apart from occasional immersion in rivers or the sea, is, as might be anticipated, an exceedingly old custom. Homer mentions the bath as one of the first refreshments offered to a guest; thus, when Ulysses enters the palace of Circe, a bath is prepared for him, and he is anointed after it with costly perfumes. No representation, however, of a bath as we understand it is given upon the Greek vases, bathers being represented either simply washing at an elevated basin, or having water poured over them from above. In later times, rooms, both public and private, were built expressly for bathing, the public baths of the Greeks being mostly connected with the gymnasia. Apparently, by an inversion of the later practice, it was customary in the Homeric epoch to take first a cold and then a hot bath; but the Lacedemonians substituted the hot-air sudorific bath, as less enervating than warm water, and in Athens at the time of Demosthenes and Socrates the warm bath was considered by the more rigorous as an effeminate custom.
The fullest details we have with respect to the bathing of the ancients apply to its luxurious development under the Romans. Their bathing establishments consisted of four main sections: the undressing room, with an adjoining chamber in which the bathers were anointed; a cold room with provision for a cold bath; a room heated moderately to serve as a preparation for the highest and lowest temperatures; and the sweating-room, at one extremity of which was a vapour-bath and at the other an ordinary hot bath. After going through the entire course both the Greeks and Romans made use of strigils or scrapers, either of horn or metal, to remove perspiration, oil, and impurities from the skin. Connected with the bath were walks, covered race-grounds, tennis-courts, and gardens, the whole, both in the external and internal decorations, being frequently on a palatial scale. The group of the Laocoon and the Parnese Hercules were both found in the ruins of Roman baths.
With respect to modern baths, that commonly in use in Russia consists of a single hall, built of wood, in the midst of which is a powerful metal oven, covered with heated stones, and surrounded with broad benches, on which the bathers take their places. Cold water is then poured upon the heated stones, and a thick, hot steam rises, which causes the sweat to issue from the whole body. The bather is then gently whipped with wet birch rods, rubbed with soap, and washed with lukewarm and cold water; of the latter, some pailfuls are poured over his head; or else he leaps, immediately after this sweating-bath, into a river or pond, or rolls in the snow.
The Turks, by their religion, are obliged to make repeated ablutions daily, and for this purpose there is, in every city, a public bath connected with a mosque. A favourite bath among them, however, is a modification of the hot-air sudorific-bath of the ancients introduced under the name of Turkish Bath into other than Islamic countries. A regular accompaniment of this bath, when properly given, is the operation known as 'kneading,' or massage, generally performed at the close of the sweating process, after the final rubbing of the bather with soap, and consisting in a systematic pressing and squeezing of the whole body, stretching the limbs, and manipulating all the joints as well as the fleshy and muscular parts.
Public baths were common in Europe during the late 19th century, but the first English public baths and wash-houses of the kind common in all cities during the late 19th century were established in Liverpool and near the London docks in 1844. In 1846 an act was passed for their encouragement, and a Baths and Wash-houses Act of 1878 authorized the establishment of cheap swimming-baths.
The principal natural warm baths in England are at Bath in Somersetshire (the hottest), and Brixton and Matlock in Derbyshire. The temperature of the Bath springs ranges from 109 to 117 degrees, while that of the Buxton and Matlockwaters scarcely exceeds 82 degrees. The baths of Harrogate, which are strongly impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen gas, are also of great repute for the cure of obstinate cutaneous diseases, indurations of the glands, etc. The most celebrated natural hot baths in Europe are those of Aix-la-Chapelle, and the various Baden in Germany; Toeplitz, in Bohemia; Bagnieres, Bareges, and Dax, in the south of France; and Spa, in Belgium. Besides the various kinds of water-bath with or without medication or natural mineral ingredients, there are also milk, oil, wine, earth, sand, mud, and electric baths, smoke-baths and gas-baths; but these are as a rule only indulged after specific prescription.
The practice of bathing as a method of cure in cases of disease falls under the head of hydrotherapathy; in the 19th century it was advised that even when bathing was employed simply for pleasure or purification due regard should be paid to the physiological condition of the bather. During the Victorian era in Britain writers were concerned about the potential dangers of bathing, and one warned:
'in many cases cold bathing should be avoided altogether, especially by those who have any tendency to spitting of blood or consumption, by gouty people, or by those who have any latent visceral disease or apoplectic tendency. Wherever the bath is followed by shivering instead of by a healthy reactionary glow, it is undesirable; and a cold bath in the morning after any debauchery or excess in eating or drinking on the previous evening is exceedingly imprudent. Delicate persons and children ought not to bathe in the sea before ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, and in no case should bathing be indulged after a long fast. In cold streams and rivers additional precautions should be taken, the cold plunge, when heated or fatigued, being frequently attended with fatal results. Even warm baths are not wholly free from danger; apoplexy and death having been known to follow a hot bath when entered with a full stomach. As a rule the temperature should not exceed 105 degrees, and they should not be too long continued. Frequent indulgence in them has an enervating effect, though the majority of people need as yet no renewal of Hadrian's prohibitive legislation in this matter.'
The eminent author, George Black, in 1892, while generally encouraging bathing, and describing bathing as 'likely to be of excellent use and efficacy both in the prevention and cure of disease.' Also went on to warn:
'Baths should never be taken immediately after a meal, nor when the body is very much exhausted by fatigue or excitement of any kind, nor during nor just before menstruation; and they should be sparingly and guardedly used by pregnant women.' Research Bath
An original study into the science of attraction among the English.
A young person on a Friday night dresses up and goes to town seeking a mate. They would argue that their choice of clothes and presentation are conscious. Decisions made in the light of current fashion trends and their own perception of what they look good in. In fact, the choices have already been made by nature. Biological programming by nature steers that young person as surely as the winds and tides steer a ship without a rudder. To understand these unconscious motivations one must review the role of humans as animals. All animals are programmed with the primary intention of helping the species to survive long-term. Long term survival of any species is accomplished through it's adaptation and development. A species adapts from one generation to the next through the mixing of genes. Breeding between many different partners. Nature programs all animals to encourage the combination of genes which are most likely to assist the species. Strong animals breed together and restrict the breeding of weaker animals. Creative and perceptive, but weak individuals covertly breed.
In this way both strength, and creativity are passed on. The notion of 'the survival of the fittest' is quite untrue. Speed, strength and mental ability all assist survival. Human animals are no different in their programming to any other species. They are as much victims to the primary directive of species survival as are the amoeba, the ant and the elephant. When two animals, be they human or otherwise, breed the parents pass on to the offspring characteristics from themselves. The offspring is then a mixture of characteristics from the parents. Human animals have an insatiable desire to pass on their characteristics. It is programmed into them just as it is with all animals. Certainly the human ability to think and to rationalise gives rise to conflicts between this animal desire and social acceptability, but the urge remains none-the-less.
To examine how the desire to satisfy this primary directive motivates humans in perhaps everything they do one must first review the basic roles of the sexes. The female human, like all female mammals is fertilised by the male and carries the young inside herself for a while before giving birth. Human' s give birth prematurely, as do all advanced animals. If the human mother was to carry her offspring until such time as it was capable of self sufficiency her gestation period would be in the region of twelve years, rather than nine months. Quite impossible, so the young is born early and dependant upon the mother, for she produces milk, for support. In a primitive society, a nursing mother is incapable of supporting her offspring and gathering food and shelter for herself. The human mother, like most other animals relies upon the support of a partner - usually the male father of the offspring - who will collect food, shelter and provide protection against predators. The two roles are quite clearly defined by nature: The female nurtures the offspring. The male provides for the female during the nurturing period With civilisation, the roles
become confused. A male may nurture the offspring once it has been born while the female support him. Two males or females may acquire an offspring and live together. But the basic situation is the same; two adults co-operating for the benefit of producing new offspring for the species. Gregarious co-operation with family units supporting single parents may also appear. But even in these circumstances responsibility for an offspring will be taken by one or two adults. Realising these basic roles of the two sexes one can see what each looks for in the other as a partner.
The female when seeking a male partner looks for the following characteristics: 1) Desirability by other females. This ensures that resultant offspring will also attractive and will have the maximum chance of spawning.
2) Fidelity. To ensure the maximum purity of the offspring.
3) Steadfastness. This ensures that the male will support her during the gestation period and while the offspring is dependant upon her. Otherwise, she and the offspring may not survive.
4) Mental ability. Mental ability is important to assist the species to develop.
5) Strength. Physical strength is necessary for the survival of both the offspring and the species.
6) Social Status. In an advanced society this may be realised as wealth. A perceived high social status implies success, which in turn inspires confidence in the off spring' s chances of survival.
The male human seeks the following from a female mate:
1) Desirability by other males. This ensures that resultant offspring will also attractive and will have the maximum chance of spawning.
2) Fidelity. To ensure the maximum purity of the offspring.
3) Steadfastness. This ensures that the female will provide and nourish the offspring ensuring its survival.
4) Mental ability. Mental ability is important to assist the species to develop.
5) Strength. Physical strength is necessary for the survival of both the offspring and the species.
Despite the desire for fidelity in our partner, mankind has also been programmed to spread our genes as far and wide as possible. This programming is responsible for the phases humans go through with our desires at times for 'older' and 'younger' partners, and also for ' exotic' or foreign partners. The problem of inbreeding has been taken care of with our variance in what humans find desirable. If all humans found the same attributes attractive in a person, the scope of reproduction would be severely limited. However, by programming humans to find different attributes more or less attractive, nature ensures a good spread of reproduction. Personality takes a part. Our programming to benefit the species leads one to resist personalities with attributes which do not consider beneficial to the species, and to bias towards personalities with attributes which are found beneficial. As with all animals, humans have a problem with finding a mate. Potential mates must be satisfied with our desirability. And while this can be circumscribed through force and deceit (rape or plying the mate with alcohol or drugs to numb the mind), generally humans preen and parade themselves as other animals do.
Humans embarrass attractiveness through covering our bodies with perfumes, clothes and paint. Males will appear successful through driving a suitable vehicle, or wearing suitable clothes. Suitable being items which trigger the notion of success in the potential mate's mind. The female human, being on the whole passive in the mate selection process, will display herself in front of potential mates to attract attention. She implies receptability through the display and emphasis of her erogenous regions. Homosexuality: While the divisions between the male and female sexes in humans is clearly defined biologically, psychologically the male and female sexes are confused, blended and fused. The advancement of the humananimal has been a partial result of the blending of psychological characteristics of parents in their offspring. Thus, all humans posses male and female characteristics in varying degrees, forming a shaded psyche rather than the clearly defined male/female roles
of less complex organisms. This may account for the comparatively large number of human homosexuals compared to other animals, and indeed observation and interviews with homosexual men over many years has led to the belief that male homosexuals are essentially of the male physical sex, but female mental sex, consisting of a much higher proportion of female psychological attributes than traditional men. Research Biological Programming In Human Sexual Relationships
A churn is a vessel in which milk or cream is agitated or beaten in order to separate the liquid from the solids, thereby leaving butter. Originally churns consisted of an upright wooden vessel in which the milk was agitated by a pole with a wooden disk at the lower end (known as a dasher). By the late 19th century churns were being made of metal, and were generally circular and fitted with rods inside known as dashers. Two methods of agitation were employed, sometimes the vessel was turned by way of a handle, and sometimes the dashers inside were turned by way of a handle. Research Churn
Colostrum is the first milk of mammalia secreted after giving birth to young. It differs in composition from ordinary milk;
has a purgative action, and serves to clear the bowels of infants of the meconium or faecal matter which they contain at birth. Research Colostrum
A dasher is a contrivance, such as a rod, found inside a butter churn for agitating milk to separate the fat from the liquid and produce butter. Research Dasher
Hieroglyphics (so called from the Greek hieros, sacred, and glypho, I engrave), is a term originally applied to the inscriptions sculptured on buildings in Egypt, in the belief that the writing was confined to sacred subjects, and legible only to the priests. The term has also been applied to picture-writing in general, such as that of the Mexicans and the still ruder pictures of the North American Indians.
Three different modes of writing were used by the ancient Egyptians, the Hieroglyphic, the Hieratic, and the Demotic. Pure hieroglyphic writing is the earliest, and consists of figures of material objects from every sphere of nature and art, with certain mathematical and arbitrary symbols. Next was developed the hieratic or priestly writing, the form in which most Egyptian literature is written, and in which the symbols almost cease to be recognizable as figures of objects. Hieratic writings of the third millennium BC are extant. In the demotic or enchorial writing, derived directly from the hieratic, the symbols are still more obscured. The demotic was first used in the 9th century BC, and was chiefly employed in social and commercial intercourse.
Down to the end of the 18th century scholars failed to find a clue to the hieroglyphic writings. In 1799, however, Bouchard, a French captain of engineers, discovered at Rosetta the celebrated stone which afforded European scholars a key to the language and writing of the ancient Egyptians. It contained a trilingual inscription in hieroglyphics, demotic characters, and Greek, which turned out
to be a decree of the priests in honour of Ptolemy V, issued in 195 BC. The last paragraph of the Greek inscription stated that two translations, one in the sacred and the other in the popular Egyptian language, would be found adjacent to it.
The discovery of an alphabet was the first task. The demotic part of the inscription was first examined by De Sacy and Akerblad, and the signification of a number of the symbols ascertained. The hieroglyphic part was next carefully examined and compared with the demotic and Greek. At last after much study Champollion and Dr. Thomas Young, independently of each other, discovered the method of reading the characters in 1822, and thus provided a clue to the decipherment of the ancient Egyptian writing.
Hieroglyphic characters are either ideographic, i.e. using well-known objects as symbols of conceptions, or phonetic, i.e. representing words by symbols standing for their sounds. The phonetic signs are again divided into alphabetical signs and syllabic signs. Many of the ideographic characters are simple enough; thus the figure of a man, a woman, a calf, indicate simply those objects. Others, however, are less simple, and convey their meaning figuratively or symbolically.
Water was expressed by three zigzag lines, one above the other, to represent waves or ripples of running water, milk by a milk-jar, oil by an oil-jar, fishing by a pelicanseizing a fish, i.e. fishing; seeing and sight by an eye; and so on.
The nature of the phonetic hieroglyphs, which represent simply sounds are more diffuclt to explain. Characters represent sounds, thus a picture of a knee represents a K sound. A lioncouchant represents the L sound. A reed represents the E sound The reed is doubled to represents the diphthong 'ai'. A noose represents the O sound. A mat represents the P sound. An eagle represents the A sound. The hand represents the T sound. A semicircle is found at the end of feminine proper names, and is the Coptic feminine article T.
The researches of Champollion satisfied him of the existence of homophones, or characters having the same phonetic value and which might be interchanged in writing proper names. The mouth, represents the R sound. The egg is found at the end of proper names of women, and is a feminine affix. The hook represents the S sound Vowels were only regarded by the Egyptians as they were needed to avoid ambiguous writing.
There are groups of hieroglyphs of which one element is an ideographic sign, to which a phonetic complement is added to indicate the pronunciation of the ideographic sign. The words of a text could be written in hieroglyphs in three ways: 1. By phonetic hieroglyphs, 2. By ideographic hieroglyphs; and 3, by a combination of both. According to Ebers, in the perfected system of hieroglyphics the symbols for sounds and syllables are to be regarded as the foundation of the writing, while symbols for ideas are interspersed with them, partly to render the meaning more intelligible, and partly for ornamental purposes, or with a view to keep up the mystic character of the hieroglyphics. Research Hieroglyphics
The knout was a Russian instrument of punishment. It consisted of a handle about 60 cm long, to which was fastened a flat leatherthong about twice the length of the handle, terminating with a large copper or brass ring; to this ring was affixed a strip of hide about five centimetres broad at the ring, and terminating at the end of 60 cm in a point. This was soaked in milk and dried in the sun to make it harder, and should it fall, in striking, the culprit on the edge, it would cut like a penknife. The culprit was bound erect to two stakes to receive the specified number of lashes on the back, and the tail of the knout was changed at every sixth stroke. Punishment by the knout often resulted in the death of the victim. It was abolished by Tsar Nicholas I. Research Knout
Sunday is the seventh day of the week. Formerly, in Britain Sunday was considered the first day of the week, and some people still consider it so. In 321 a constitution of the Roman Emperor Constantine set Sunday aside as a day of rest in the towns, though the country population were allowed to work. In Britain, Edgar in 960 ordered the Sabbath to be kept holy from 3 pm on Saturday until daybreak on the following Monday and in 1677 Britain passed the Sunday Observance Act which while almost obsolete, had still not been repealed in 1920. In Wales, an act of 1881 forced the closure of all public houses on Sunday, except for railway station bars.
In 1606 Britain made it an offence, punishable by a fine, to be absent from divine worship on a Sunday, though exceptions were made for those infirm, elderly, young, insane and sick. In 1677 an Act of Charles II forbade all work on Sunday except what was necessary or had a charitable object, and the sale of goods on a Sunday was banned except the supply of meat and milk at public houses. This act remained intact until 1871 when Jews were freed from observing Sunday as a day of rest. Research Sunday
Vegetarianism is a movement which originally aimed at making vegetable foods the solediet of human beings, but now refers to those individuals who keep a diet solely of vegetable foods. The vegetarianism movement began in Europe about 1850, and its followers abstain from eating the flesh of animals and birds. Some eat fish, but others do not, while strict vegetarians abstain from all food which comes from animals, such as eggs, milk, butter, and cheese.
One reason for vegetarianism is the dislike of inflicting pain, but it is also advocated as providing a more nourishing and economical diet. It is also claimed that a vegetarian diet makes persons less liable to certain diseases, e.g. cancer, and less gross in their appetites and desires, while it is also advocated on economic and patriotic grounds. Akin to the vegetarians are the fruitarians, who maintain life solely on a diet of fruit.
In the 19th century the movement made a good deal of progress in Great Britain, the USA, and several European countries. Vegetarian restaurants were opened in large towns, and other measures taken to popularise vegetarian dishes. Research Vegetarianism
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Adulteration
