tions of names for inspectors and chemists. Examinations were held and the grade of men that responded for the work was remarkable. Graduates of our highest institutions of learning, physicians of good training and men of broad experience were certified by the Civil Service Commission for the positions of inspectors, and many of the leading food chemists of the country were secured for the laboratories. As a consequence, when the day arrived for the law to go into effect, the Department was ready to begin active work in its enforcement.

To facilitate the work, branch laboratories were established at the principal ports of entry and centers of distribution of food and drug products. To-day there are 21 of these branch laboratories, which, with the Bureau at Washington, have a total working force of about 275 chemists. Inspectors, as secured, were stationed in the various States, until to-day there is an inspector in practically every State of the Union; and many of the States in which are located large centers of commerce, there are two or more inspectors.

Before taking up the discussion of what has been accomplished in the enforcement of the food law, it might be well for us to consider briefly, just what the law is and what it covers. As expressed in its title, the Food and Drug Act is "An Act for Preventing the Manufacture, Sale, or Transportation of Adulterated or Misbranded or Poisonous or Deleterious Foods, Drugs, Medicines and Liquors, and for Regulating the Traffic Therein, and for Other Purposes."

It should be remembered that the National Government has jurisdiction only over interstate commerce, commerce with foreign nations and the government of the territories and the District of Columbia, so that the National Food and Drugs Act applies only to those products shipped into interstate commerce, or imported into this country from a foreign country, or shipped from this country to another country, or is manufactured or sold in the territories or in the District of Columbia. Or, to put it briefly, the National Pure Food law does not have jurisdiction over products manufactured and sold in the same State. The constitution reserves to the States the right to regulate their own internal com

merce.

The Law defines what shall constitute adulteration and misbranding for both foods and drugs. I wish to say here that I do not intend this evening to discuss in any way the subject of drugs or their adulteration and sophistication. I note that Prof. Olsen has not mentioned this subject in his paper. For your information I might state that the adulteration and sophistication that existed in drugs, particularly food drugs, when the National Food and Drug law was enacted, was even greater than in foods. And if there is anything that should be pure, it is the medicine that the physician relies upon to combat

the disease and restore the health of his patients. The subject of drug adulteration is closely allied to the adulteration of foods and fully as important, and I recommend it for your future consideration.

But to return to our subject. The misbranding section of the law, in its application to foods, prohibits false and misleading statements of all kinds. Inasmuch as these refer more particularly to the question of deception than to effect on health, we need not consider them in our discussion this evening.

With reference to adulteration:-By the terms of the Act, a food product is deemed to be adulterated,

First. If any substance has been mixed and packed with it so as to reduce or lower, or injuriously affect its quality or strength.

Second. If any substance has been substituted wholly or in part for the article.

Third. If any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or in part abstracted.

Fourth. If it be mixed, colored, powdered, coated or stained in a manner whereby its inferiority or damage is concealed.

Fifth. If it contains any added poisonous or other added ingredient which may render such article injurious to health.

Sixth.-If it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decomposed or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if it be the product of a diseased animal, or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter.

Confectionery is provided for in a separateparagraph which states that an article shall be

deemed to be adulterated if it contains terra alba,

barytes, talc, chrome yellow, or other mineral substance or poisonous color or flavor, or other ingredient deleterious or detrimental to health, or any vinous, malt or spirituous liquor or compound or narcotic drug.

In the case of imported foods the Act provides even more stringent requirements than for the domestic products in that it refuses the admission into this country of any product that is adulterated or misbranded within the meaning of the definitions just given, or is of a kind that is forbidden entry into, or forbidden to be sold or restricted in sale in the country in which it is made or from which it is exported, or is otherwise dangerous to the health of the people of the United States. As has already been stated the adulterants which enter into the sophistication of foods are often divided into two groups, in the first of which are placed those which are harmless to health the fraudulent adulterants, while in the second, belong, such substances as are either injurious or positively poisonous to health. Fortunately, the first of these two classes is by far the larger, and you will note that of the six paragraphs defining adulteration, four cover the first

32

class. But in this connection, I desire to call. your attention to the fact that while this form of adulteration does not result in the production of a food that is positively injurious to health, it is not without effect upon the animal economy. There may be no direct injury to the health by the addition of a large percentage of water (provided it is pure water) to milk, or of the substitution of wheat flour and tumeric for mustard, but the body is deprived of certain nourishment that was expected from the food supposedly taken. Thus it is seen that this form. of adulteration which is so universal is not without its effect upon the health of man, and when we consider the extent of this form of adulteration, its effect must be far-reaching.

You ask me to tell you what is being done to protect the public health by the enforcement of the Food and Drugs Act. I think I can best answer this by quoting to you the words of the Secretary of Agriculture in his address before the Association of State and National Food Departments at Denver, Col., last August. Secretary Wilson said:

"We have reported 475 cases to the Attorney. General for criminal prosecution, and recommended the seizure of 225 consignments of merchandise, aggregating in value $750,000; fines have been imposed to the amount of $20,000, excluding costs also assessed against defendants. Many cases recently reported are now pending in the courts. We have inspected more than 170,000 import shipments, and 25,000 samples taken there from have been examined and analyzed at the port laboratories. About a thousand shipments have been refused admission and reexported, and 3,000 shipments have been allowed to enter only after relabeling. Our effort has been to secure substantial compliance with the law with as little friction between the government and manufacturers and dealers, as possible. We have recommended the prosecution of every case based upon a substantial violation of the law; but lenience has been shown in offenses committed when the law was new and when the violation was the result of an honest mistake in interpreting the law. We have issued 100 food inspection decisions, explaining the Department's interpretation of the law. I have directed that no prosecutions be made for alleged violations which are the result of honest mistakes of the offender in interpreting the law. We have inspected the milk supply of St. Louis, Kansas City, Cincinnati and Chicago, and as a result 125 cases have been reported to the Attorney General, based on interstate shipments of impure milk. We have also reported numerous cases of the mislabeling and misbranding of flavoring extracts, vinegar, syrup, buckwheat flour, olive oil, health food flours, mineral waters, headache cures, alleged cancer cures, and various proprietory medicines. A consignment of coffee coated.

JOURNAL OF MEDICINE

with lead chromate was seized and destroyed. After a thorough investigation flour bleached with nitrogen peroxide was found to be adulterated under the law. In December, 1908, the conclusions of the Department were announced and the manufacturers and dealers were allowed six months to dispose of stocks on hand. Seizures of these bleached flours have been effected since that period and are being made now."

I might add to the Secretary's statement that the Department has also done considerable work along other lines, as for instance, investigation of the coal-tar dyes, used in the preparation of food products and which has also been referred to by Prof. Olsen. Practically all the coal-tar dyes in use in food products were investigated, and of these seven were found, which when properly prepared were not injurious to health. Standards of purity for these seven colors were fixed, and I can announce that to-day these colors complying in every respect with the standards are to be found upon the markets.

Prof. Olsen has given us a very interesting exposition of the use of chemical preservatives in foods and their effect upon health. This, as you know is one of the difficult problems which confronts the officials who have charge of the enforcement of the law. The Department of Agriculture is having its own difficulties in solving this problem, but I can state that progress is being made. Investigation as to the precise effect upon the health of these various chemicals are being carried on independently by the Bureau of Chemistry, and by the best experts on the subject that the Department is able to obtain. I anticipate that the near future will see a solution of these perplexing problems, and allow me to prophesy that the reputable food manufactures of the future will no more think of using the chemical preservatives for his products than he would to-day the old discarded sophistications of the past. That a large number of manufacturers do not use these substances and that each year adds to this list bears out my prophecy. The Department is lending its aid to this side of the work by conducting, in the factories and in a practical way, experiments in the preservation of food by sterilization and observance to the rules of sanitary science.

The Department has also investigated the preparation and shipment of oysters, clams and other shell-fish. The beds and packing-houses for these products were visited by the experts of the Department; samples of the fish and of the water were submitted, both to chemical and bacteriological examination, and experiments were carried on to determine the exact effect of "Floating" or drinking oysters. A public hearing was held and the conclusions of the Department have recently been published in a food inspection decision (110).

Another matter which has required consider

able work on the part of the Department has been the investigations conducted to determine what is whiskey, by reason of certain terms, such as "compound," "blend," "imitation," etc., which appeared in the Act. This question has largely resolved itself into a legal interpretation of certain sections of the law, and as you know, is now under consideration by the President. The Department has, however, investigated the methods of production, and perfected methods of analysis whereby we are able to determine the exact character of the products on the market when called upon to do so.

There are several other questions, such as the glazing of coffee, coating of rice, requirements for admission of foreign meat products which have also been investigated and the necessary rules and regulations governing same formulated. It is, however, difficult to express satisfactorily in figures or in words what has really been accomplished. You, who have been called upon to give an account of your own work whatever it may be, can well appreciate this. It is not always the number of samples analyzed, or the number of cases successfully prosecuted that represents the best enforced food laws. To us who are actively engaged in this work the results are shown in various ways, such as the elimination from the market of certain products, the change made in the composition and character of products, and the changes made in the labels used to designate the character of the products.

It is not my intention, however, to credit to the enforcement of the National law alone the marked improved condition of our food products of to-day to what they were a few years ago. As you know a great many of the States have stringent food laws enforced by efficient officials and to these is much credit due. It is to the universality of the movement and the enforcement of the laws throughout the entire country that so much has been accomplished during the past few years. What has been accomplished by the enforcement of the pure food laws, was so clearly set forth by President Ladd in his address at the meeting of the Association of the State and National Food Departments that I repeat his statement. Contrasting the conditions that existed a decade ago with those of the present time, President Ladd said:

"Jellies and jams were largely adulterated and misbranded, made from apple stock and waste. fruit products, often containing starch paste and mucilage, colored with aniline dyes, preserved with salicylic acid and sweetened with glucose and saccharine, and the whole falsely labeled. Our canned corn, almost without exception was bleached with sulphites, preserved and sweetened with a coal tar product, saccharine. Our peas and string beans frequently contained copper and alum salts and often contained chemical preservatives. Our meats were embalmed with chemicals,

and some of the canned products contained little but gristle, connective tissue and waste matters, seasoned and flavored, but sold as potted chicken, ham, etc. Our Sorghum syrup came largely from glucose factories, while the maple syrup was almost wholly an imitation product worth fifty cents a gallon and retailed at a dollar and a half. Our strained honey was largely flavored syrups and glucose. Our candies were made from glucose containing sulphites, to which further sulphites were added, colored with coal tar colors, many of which were known to be harmful, and flavored with chemicals and synthetic flavors. Our whiskies, brandies and wines most generally sold even in the drug stores, the good Lord only knows what they did contain, but our chemists have shown that they seldom did contain real whiskey. Our cider vinegars were unknown to the apple family. Our spices were but a semblance of the real thing, made as they were, from corn meal, cocoanut shells, olive stones and other waste products. Not a few of our drugs, drug preparations, extracts, etc., contained wood alcohol, known to be a deadly poison. Cereals and chicory were known to be the basis of much ground coffee. Lemon and vanilla extracts were largely imitation products and put up with wood alcohol. Many of the preparations dispensed at the drug store varied from 25 to 150 per cent. of the U. S. P. strength; and fully 75 per cent. of the patent medicines, were fakes, pure and simple.

"But why dwell upon this longer than to show what has been accomplished through the enactment of food laws and their enforcement. Today the conditions are largely changed. Pure foods, pure drugs of proper strength, and truthful labeling are in a large measure being realized."

The work of the officials charged with the enforcement of the food laws is changing. True, many of the sophistications above cited still exist, particularly in certain sections of the country and it is necessary to keep the entire food supply of the country under surveillance to prevent the recurrence of these forms of adulteration. But the work is going further. It is being put on a more scientific basis and is reaching for the real source of the evil. The States are supplementing their food laws with sanitary laws governing factories wherein articles of food are produced, the manner in which they are transported and the markets where they are offered for sale. Paragraph 6 of section 7, of the Food and Drugs Act, prohibits the sale of an article of food, if it consists in whole or in part of a filthy, decomposed, or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or any portion of an animal unfit for food, whether manufactured or not, or if it is the product of a diseased animal, or one that has died otherwise than by slaughter." To provide for

(a) "The Secretary of Agriculture, when he deems its necessary, shall examine the raw materials used in the manufacture of food and drug products, and determine whether any filthy, decomposed or putrid substance is used in their preparation."

Under this regulation a systematic inspection of places where articles of food are prepared or produced for the market is maintained. That this has been of great value in the protection of public health is evidenced by the seizure and destruction by court order of two large consignments of tomato catsup which were proved by inspection of factory and bacteriological examination to be made from factory refuse. In one of our large cities the bottling plant of one of the principal table waters on the market was found in unsanitary condition and the water contaminated with the colon and gas producing bacteria. A large consignment of the goods were seized and destroyed and the plant required to correct its unsanitary conditions. And not only is this line of work being carried out in reference to the domestic products, but through the Government representatives abroad we are obtaining

information as to the conditions under which the food products shipped to this country are produced.

Thus the work of the enforcement of the Food and Drugs Act is going on. Perhaps not as much has been accomplished in the three years that the law has been in force as some of its advocates had hoped for, but many obstacles were met that no one could have forseen, and it takes time with the law of the scope of the National Food law to organize the working force for the enforcement and perfect the same for perfect working order. But I believe I am warranted in saying that withal, good progress has been made.

THE BOARD OF HEALTH AND THE FOOD SUPPLY OF NEW YORK.*

T

By Mr. J. P. ATKINSON, U.S.
Chief Chemist, Department of Health.

HE control of the food supply of New York City is directed by the Board of Health, of which the Commissioner of Health, Dr. Thomas Darlington, as you know, is the President. The Board of Health, acting under authority given it by law, has created various ordinances relating to the preservation of the health of the people of New York City and has incorporated them in the Sanitary Code. These ordinances are enforced by the Sanitary Superintendent, Dr. Walter Ben

*Read before the Medical Society of the County of Kings, at Brooklyn, December 21, 1909.

of the Sanitary Code.

Other ordinances particularizing and making specific this general ordinance have been adopted by the Board of Health among which those regulations relating to the foods sold in this city and their enforcement are interesting us this evening.

By "Foods," an used by the Sanitary Code, is meant everything which is consumed by human beings, including all those substances which appeal only to the senses and hence influence the appetite, as well as substances which have a direct nutritive value.

In order to carry out this work successfully the office of the Sanitary Superintendent is organized into divisions as follows for the protection of the food:

Division of Inspection of Foods and Drugs.
Division of Sanitation Inspection.
Division of Chemistry.

Division of Bacteriology.

The division of contagious diseases may also be considered as belonging to this group to a certain extent.

The work of ensuring pure food for the city needs these divisions for the results of dirty surroundings cannot be always recognized by even the most careful chemical analysis.

For example, when an inspector finds meats, milk or vegetables in a decayed or filthy condition he destroys them, but he cannot tell whether or not they contain the organisms of disease that may be transmitted directly by the dealer or the surroundings. Similarly a sample of well water may contain typhoid organisms and yet the water may not be sufficiently polluted to warrant condemnation through a chemical analysis. In such a case, a bacteriological examination is necessary. All these various conditions are considered in the control of New York's Food Supply. Under Mr. Bayard C. Fuller, Chief of the Division of Food and Drug Inspection, all the inspection of food brought to and held for sale in the city of New York is carried out, excepting the inspection of milk, which is under the supervision of Mr. Russell Raynor, Chief Sanitary Inspector.

Mr. Fuller has under him specialists in food inspection such as inspectors of meat and poultry, fish, fruit and fresh vegetables, inspector of general food supplies, such as confectionery, bread stuffs, canned, bottled and preserved foods, condiments, eggs and various kinds of substances hard to classify as coloring matter, flavoring substances, etc.

The meat and poultry, fish, fruit and fresh vegetable inspectors visit the markets and shops, freight stations, steamboat and steamship landings, and in the case of meat, the abattoirs as well.

which include fruit and vegetables, eggs, canned and preserved foods, etc.

The number of INSPECTIONS made for the last quarter totalled, for meat 43,240 and for other food substances 119,090.

The number of inspectors available for this enormous work is 31, with a supervising inspector.

There are 20 men assigned to meat and fish. These men, before entering the Department of Health service were butchers and fish dealers. There is a wholesale fish inspector stationed at the Fulton Market, the distributing station for fish for the city, one might say. The other 10 inspectors are assigned to the rest of the food work. This year, to date, 400 arrests have been made and $5,000 have been paid in fines.

The oyster dealers must now work under a permit and are allowed to sell oysters only from those beds where inspection shows the water to be unpolluted. Formerly the conditions surrounding the "fattening" beds in many cases was to say the least extremely disgusting. These conditions have been stopped so that now one may feel safe in eating raw oysters.

The inspection of milk, and dairy products, canned, bottled and preserved food, coloring matter, flavoring substances, preservatives, etc., must be supplemented by a chemical examination. In many cases an inspector may be very suspicious of adulteration without sufficient proof to destroy, as for instance in the case of imported broken eggs which come in bulk from a foreign port, China or Russia, perhaps. These eggs are

to be used by bakers and are supposed to be kept frozen in cold storage until used. This, however, is helped out sometimes by preservatives such as borax or formaldehyde. An embargo is put on the suspected cans of eggs and a sample is taken to the Chemical Laboratory at the foot of East 16th Street, Manhattan, for examination. If a preservative is found to be present the shippers are refused the privilege of landing their goods, or the goods are seized if already landed. The same method is applied in another example in the case of condensed milk. The law requires that the fat content shall be 25% of the total milk solids and that there shall be no preservative excepting cane sugar present. Not long since a shipment of hundreds of cans of a particular brand of condensed milk was held and the owners forbidden to distribute it pending a chemical examination of sample cans taken at random from a number of cases.

It would be easy to multiply such examples many times over, but these two will serve as types for all. There are of course many samples examined which have been bought by the inspectors in the shops that do not represent car loads or large shipments, but the seller is held responsible for the quality of the food he sells.

In this respect the City of New York law differs from the National pure food law, for under the National law a retailer honestly ignorant of the adulteration is excused and the adulteration is traced back to the persons responsible for it. But the U. S. Government works under an interstate law, while the City of New York can only work within its own boundaries. If the seller was not held responsible there would be no method whatever of stopping the sale of adulterated foods (by an unprincipaled dealer) which were not actually fit for use by the aid of the senses of sight and smell, for he would simply fall back upon his feigned ignorance. A dealer in foods. under our city law must take care that what he sells is pure.

The Department of Health also looks after the water supply of the City, both the public supply and the wells and cisterns. The Croton water and the Ridgewood water are examined weekly and the other public supplies of which there are about 40 in the greater city, monthly. The Department of Water Supply gives these public sources of supply its constant attention but occasions have arisen when the collaboration of the Health Department has been very beneficial. (Example of SiCl test.)

EXAMPLE OF SICL. TEST.

A certain pumping station supplying the public with water in one of the boroughs of this city was suspected of using the water from a stream polluted with sewage to augment its driven well supply. The owners denied this and claimed to use only the water from the driven wells for