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 Rye-House Plot was a plan to secure the succession of the duke of Monmouth to the throne in preference to the duke of York (afterwards James II), a Roman Catholic. Some of the conspirators planned to assassinate the king, Charles II and his brother. However, the plan was frustrated by the king's house at Newmarket accidentally catching fire which caused the royal party to leave eight days before the plot was to take effect, on March 22nd 1683. The plot was discovered on June 12th and Lord William Russell and Algernon Sidney were arrested and illegally convicted and executed. The plot was so named after the conspirators meeting place, the Rye-House at Broxbourne, Hertfordshire. Research Rye-House Plot
Arrhenatherum is a genus of oat-like grasses, of which Arrhenatherum elatius, sometimes called French rye-grass, is a valuable fodder plant. Research Arrhenatherum
Cereal is a term applied to Gramineae cultivated for food (wheat, barley, rye, oats &c.). The name comes from Ceres, the goddess associated with corn. Research Cereal
Darnel (Lolium temulentum) is the only poisonous British grass. It is a species of rye-grass and was formerly a common weed among cereal crops. Research Darnel
Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) is a fungoid parasite found on several cereals, principally rye. The seed is replaced by a dense homogeneous tissue largely charged with an oily fluid. In its perfect state this germinates and produces the Claviceps. When eaten it causes the disease of ergotism (formerly known as St Anthony's Fire) which can be fatal. It is widely used in medicine as it contains more than a dozen potent alkaloids and was used in obstetric practice to promote the contraction of the uterus. Research Ergot
The Granary Weevil (Sitophilus granarius) is a species of Snout Beetle (Curculionidae) that are a serious pest of stored grain, chiefly wheat and rye. Research Granary Weevil
Grass (Graminaceae) is an extensive family of endogenous plants comprising about 250 genera and 4500 species. The roots are fibrous; the stem is usually cylindrical and jointed varying length from a few centimetres to 30 metres in the case of the bamboo, (in the sugar-cane the stem is solid, but porous), and coated with silex; leaves, one to each node or joint, with a sheathing petiole; spikelets terminal, panicled, racemose, or spiked; flowers hermaphrodite or polygamous, destitute of true calyx or corolla, surrounded by a double set of bracts, the outer constituting the glumes, the inner the paleoe; stamens hypogynous, three or six; filaments long and flaccid; anthers versatile; ovary solitary, simple, with two (rarely three) styles, one-celled, with a single ovule; fruit known as a caryopsis, the seed and the pericarp being inseparable from each other.. The family includes many of the most valuable pasture-plants, all those which yield corn and the sugar-cane. The nutritious herbage and farinaceous seed furnished by many of them render them of incalculable importance, while the stems and leaves are useful for various textile and other purposes.
The more important divisions of the natural order of grasses are: (1) Panicaceoe, including the Paniceoe (millet, fundi, Guinea grass); the Andropogoneoe (sugar-cane, dhurra, lemon-grass) ; the Rottboellieoe (gama-grass); etc. (2) Phalarideoe (maize, Job's tears, canary-grass, foxtail-grass, soft-grass, Timothy grass). (3) Poaceoe, including the Oryzeoe (rice); Stipeoe (feather-grass, esparto); Agrosteoe (bent-grass); Aveneoe (oats, vernal grass); Festuceoe (fescue, meadow-grass, manna-grass, teff, cock's-foot grass, tussac grass, dog's-tail grass); Bambtiseoe (bamboo); Hordeoe (wheat, barley, rye, spelt, rye-grass, lyme-grass).
In its popular use the term grasses is chiefly applied to the pasture grasses as distinct from the cereals, etc. but it is also applied to some herbs, which are not in any strict sense grasses at all, e.g. rib-grass, scurvy and whitlow grass. After the culture of herbage and forage plants became an important branch of husbandry, it became customary to call the clovers, trefoils, sainfoin, and other flowering plants grown as fodder, artificial grasses, by way of distinction from the grasses proper, which were termed natural grasses. Of the pasture grasses, some thrive in meadows, others in marshes, on upland fields, or on bleak hills, and they by no means grow indiscriminately. Indeed the species of grass will often indicate the quality of the soil; thus, Holcus, Dactylis, and Bromus are found on sterile land, Festuca and Alopecurus on a better soil, Poa and Cynosurus are only found in the best pasture land. Research Grass
The Hessian Fly (Cecidomyia destructor) is a fly of the family Tipulidae, of the order Diptera, the larva of which is very destructive to wheat, barley and rye crops. It is so named from the unfounded belief, formerly prevalent in America, where it is specially destructive, that it was brought over to that country in the baggage of the Hessian mercenaries employed against the Americans in the American War of Independence. The female fly is about 3 mm in length, with a wing expanse of about 7 mm. Its body is brown, with the upper parts, the thorax, and the head of a darker shade, approaching to black. The wings are of a dusky grey, and are surrounded with fringes. The male is somewhat smaller than the female and has longer antennae. The female flies usually lay their eggs on the young plants twice in the year, in May and September, out of which eggs the maggots hatch in from four to fourteen days. These work themselves in between the leaf-sheath and the stem, and fix themselves near the lowest joints, often near the root, and suck the juices of the stem, so that the ear falls down at a sharp angle. These maggots turn to pupae, from which the flies develop in about ten days. It has long been a pest in America and Germany, but did not appear in Britain until the summer of 1886. Research Hessian Fly
Lolium is a genus of grasses of the Hordeae tribe. The genus includes the Italian ryegrass (Lolium italicum) and the darnel (Lolium temulentum). Research Lolium
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Adulteration
