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
German Tinder, or amadou is prepared from the Boletus fomentarius, a fungus growing on the oak, birch, and some other trees, or from the Boletus igniarius found on the willow, cherry, plum, and other trees. The fungus is removed with a sharp knife, washed, boiled in a strong solution of saltpetre, beaten with a mallet, and dried. In surgery it was sometimes used to stop local bleeding. Research German Tinder
Gum is a substance of various properties which exudes spontaneously from the bark of certain trees, such as the plum, the peach, etc; or from incisions made in the bark to facilitate the flow. Gums form non-crystalline rounded drops or tears, the purest varieties being transparent or translucent, of a pale yellow but sometimes of a dark colour.
When dissolved in water gum forms a thick, smooth fluid, with considerable viscosity. Some gums, such as gum-arabic, dissolve in water; others, like tragacanth, are only partially soluble; they are insoluble in alcohol. By being insoluble in alcoholgums are distinguished from resins. They have no odour, and only a very faint taste. The different kinds of gum receive their names from the countries from which they are imported - such as gum-arabic, gum-senegal, Barbary gum, East India gum, etc, and from individual features, as cherry-tree gum, tragacanth, etc. Gum-resins require water and alcohol to dissolve them. Research Gum
Andira is a genus of leguminous American trees, with fleshy plum-like fruits. The wood is well fitted for building. The bark of Andira inermis, or cabbage-tree, is narcotic, and is used as an anthelminthic under the name of worm-bark or cabbage-bark. The powdered bark of Andira araroba was formerly used as a remedy in certain skin diseases, such as herpes. Research Andira
The apricot (Prunus armeniaca) is a species of the plum division of the Rosaceae. It is a native of China, brought to England from Italy in 1652. It is a hardy tree bearing stone fruit closely related to the peach. The leaves are broad and roundish with a pointed apex, finely serrated and petiole, about two centimetres long. The flowers are sessile, white, tinged with a dusky red. The fruit ripens around the end of July, to the middle of August and is a drupe like the plum with a thin, downy outer-skin enclosing the yellow flesh surrounding a woody, large, smooth compressed stone. The oil of the stone is used in cosmetics as a skin softener. Research Apricot
The beach plum or shore plum, (Prunus maritima) is a tall shrub bearing tart, purple to yellow plums, five centimetres in diameter which are used in jams. It grows to three metres tall and bears showy white flowers, about 2.5 centimetres wide and grows in sandy soil along the north-eastern coast of North America. Research Beach Plum
Abbreviations
Research Adulteration
