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 bible is the sacred book of the Jewish and Christian religions (actually a collection of a number of books) . The Hebrew Bible, recognised by both Jews and Christians, is called the Old Testament by Christians. The New Testament comprises books recognised by the Christian church from the 5th century as canonical (the first Christian bible was produced in 494). The Roman Catholic Bible also includes the Apocrypha. It was only in the 13th century that single-volume Bibles with a fixed content and order of books became common, largely through a Paris-produced Vulgate of 1200 and the Paris Bible of 1230. The first English translation of the entire Bible was by a priest, Miles Coverdale in 1535; the Authorised Version, or King James Bible of 1611, was long influential for the clarity and beauty of its language. A revision of the Authorized Version carried out in 1959 by the British and Foreign Bible Society produced the widely used American translation, the Revised Standard Version.
A conference of British churches in 1946 recommended a completely new translation into English from the original Hebrew and Greek texts; work on this was carried out over the following two decades, resulting in the publication of the New English Bible in 1961 and 1970. Another recent translation is the Jerusalem Bible, completed by Catholic scholars in 1966. Missionary activity led to the translation of the Bible into the languages of people they were trying to convert, and by 1993 parts of the Bible had been translated into over 2,000 different languages, with 329 complete translations.
The King James Bible has probably sold more copies than any other book in history, and is still popular, especially among fundamentalists. The 'Good News Bible' has been the most popular translation into modern colloquial English. Two new versions of the Bible were published in the mid-1990s: the Contemporary English Version of 1996, which rejects old biblical language in favour of a contemporary spoken style, and the Schocken Bible of 1995, a translation of the Pentateuch, which attempts to renew the shock of the original Hebrew. As more manuscripts are discovered, disputed readings become clearer, so that in some respects modern translations are more accurate than older ones. Research Bible
The book of Mormon is an alleged translation (done in 1830) by Joseph Smith, of a volume found buried in a stone box on Cumorah, a hill near Manchester, New York state. Composed of gold plates eight inches by seven inches, fastened by three gold rings, written in 'reformed Egyptian', interpreted by the aid of two crystals (Urim and Thummim) set like spectacles in a silver bow, it summarised American history from Babel to 420 AD. Its authors were the prophet Mormon and his son Moroni. A travesty of the Old Testament, and of similar size, intended as the bible of the West, it has been identified by unbelievers with an unprinted romance, 'The Found Manuscript' by Solomon Spaulding who died in 1816, copied and communicated to Joseph Smith by Sidney Rigdon. Research Book of Mormon
Essays and Reviews was a volume written by six Church of England clergymen and one layman: Dr. Frederick Temple (in 1896-1902 Archbishop of Canterbury), Dr. Rowland Williams, Baden Powell, H B Wilson, Mark Pattison, Professor Jowett, and Mr. C W Goodwin, and published in March, 1860. Its alleged heterodoxy caused much excitement, and called forth numerous replies, condemnation by convocation in 1864, and the prosecution of two of the writers by the ecclesiastical courts. Research Essays and Reviews
The French Encyclopedie was an Encyclopaedia and the most important work of the 18th century after the works of Voltaire and Rousseau. It originated in a French translation of Ephraim Chamber's Cyclopaedia. Diderot was appointed to edit it, and enlisted the ablest men of the time as contributors. D'Alembert (who wrote the famous Discours preliminaire) edited the mathematics; Rousseau wrote the musical articles; Daubenton, those connected with natural history; the Abbe Yvon, those on logic, metaphysics, and ethics; Toussaint, those on jurisprudence ; Buffon contributed the article Nature; and Montesquieu, Voltaire, Euler, Marmontel, D'Holbach, Turgot, Grimm, and Condorcet took some share in the great work. Diderot himself was a prolific contributor on a wide variety of topics. The prospectus appeared in November, 1750, and the first volume in 1751, the whole being completed, despite fierce opposition, in 1765. Research French Encyclopedie
The Belarus Red (also known as the Krasnaya belorusskaya, Krasnobelorusskaya, Byelorussian Red, Red White-Russian, White-Russian Red) is a breed of cow characterized by a medium long head, not wide, with a long face. The poll is pronounced. The horns are of medium size. The neck is thin and of moderate length. The withers are not sharp, occasionally divided. The chest is of medium depth, wide enough. The back is level, slightly narrow. The loin is long and level, of medium width. The mid-part of the body is well developed. The abdomen is capacious, not drooping. The rump is level, slightly raised. The hindquarters are of medium length and width, with protruding hips. The legs are comparatively thin, bony, not long, correctly set. Sometimes legs are splayed or bowed. The udder is medium in volume, glandular, cup-shaped or roundish. The teats are cylindrical, of medium size. The skin is thin, elastic, mobile. The skeleton is light and strong. The musculature is moderately developed. The conformation is harmonious and compact; the constitution delicate. The colour is red or rust-red of various shades. many animals are noted for their longevity. Research Belarus Red
Richard Hakluyt was one of the earliest English collectors of voyages and maritime journals. He was born in 1553 and died in 1616. He entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1575, and became so eminent for his acquaintance with cosmography, that he was appointed public lecturer on that science. About 1584 he went to Paris as chaplain to the English ambassador, and stayed there five years. After his return home he prepared for the press his collection of The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea, or over Land, within the Compass of these 1500 Years. The first volume, in folio, was published in 1589, and the third and last in 1600. Besides narratives of nearly 220 voyages, these volumes comprise patents, letters, instructions, and other documents, not readily to be found elsewhere. On his death he was a prebendary of Westminster and rector of Wetheringset in Suffolk, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. Research Richard Hakluyt
Richard Hakluyt was one of the earliest English collectors of voyages and maritime journals. He was born in 1553 and died in 1616. He entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1575, and became so eminent for his acquaintance with cosmography, that he was appointed public lecturer on that science. About 1584 he went to Paris as chaplain to the English ambassador, and stayed there five years. After his return home he prepared for the press his collection of The Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, made by Sea, or over Land, within the Compass of these 1500 Years. The first volume, in folio, was published in 1589, and the third and last in 1600. Besides narratives of nearly 220 voyages, these volumes comprise patents, letters, instructions, and other documents, not readily to be found elsewhere. On his death he was a prebendary of Westminster and rector of Wetheringset in Suffolk, and was interred in Westminster Abbey. Research Richard Hakluyt
Abraham Cowley was an English poet. He was born in 1618 at London and died in 1667. He was one of the metaphysical school of poets who followed John Donne in his use of far-fetched conceits. He published his first volume, Poetic Blossoms, at the age of fifteen. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, but was ejected as a royalist in 1643, and removed to St John's College, Oxford. He engaged actively in the royal cause, and when the queen was obliged to quit England, Abraham Cowley accompanied her. He was absent from his native country nearly ten years, and it was principally through him that the correspondence was maintained between the king and queen. On the Restoration he returned with the other royalists, and obtained the lease of a farm at Chertsey, held under the queen, by which his income was about 300 pounds sterling per annum. Abraham Cowley's poems have failed to maintain their ancient popularity, but he still holds a high position as a prosewriter and as an essayist. He took a considerable interest in science, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. His chief works are: Love's Riddle, a pastoralcomedy; Davideis, a scriptural epic; Naufragium Joculare; The Mistress, a collection of love verses; Pindarique Odes; Liber Plantarum; etc. Research Abraham Cowley
Albert Sorel was a French historian. He was born in 1842 at Honfleur and died in 1906. Educated at Paris and in Germany, having abandoned the idea of becoming a lawyer, in 1866 he became a public official, but his main interests were literary, and he soon started producing works of verse and prose. His life work, however, was on diplomatic history, particularly the French Revolution, with the first volume of his 'Europe and the French Revolution' published in 1885, the eighth volume being published in 1904. Research Albert Sorel
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