The Vigilant Wardens of the Public Health

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 65, 9 December 1938, Page 29 (Supplement)

The Vigilant Wardens of the Public Health

Watchful Chemists are the Housewives 5 Guardians W, IVES go shopping in New Zealand cities, and husbands and children ear in confidence what they living home—afi'l vei me average housewile cannot even tell milk that has been watered, or pepper that is one-hall sand. Fortunate, indeed, are the. people ot New Zealand that there watches over them. like a guardian angel, unseen and unremembered, the benign and busy figure of the Dominion Analyst. warden ot the country’s foodstuffs. _ _ ' It is not always the police investigator who the criminal red-handed in his iniquity. I here is a band of busy detectives in a brick building in Street, and the uniform of their calling is a white coat ant. a pair of spectacles, their weapons the microscope mid the Bunsen burner. They are the chemists or die ominion Laboratory, the detectives of food adulteration. It is their high task to see that the houses ne in nor home receives the raw materials produced _by this bounteous Dominion as fresh and pure as God gave them to the farmer. The housewife, in her kitchen, little realise* the baseness of man unchecked by these detectives or tne laboratory. Before there was any control or the. purity of foodstuffs —and even in these civilwed days, tonfood adulteration offered profit to the mi scrupulous. Who could distinguish between pure milk, and mib; containing just a little water? Rut that wa* the simplest of deceptions.

The Liver Balsers Up to the middle of last century "liver baking” was a recognised profession —the hard-baking ami grinding of rejected livers of oxen and horses to make a tolerably convincing substitute tor coffee. The mam customers of the trade were proprietors of inferior coffeehouses, who found this product cheaper than the genuine article. Coffee, indeed, was seldom sold unadulterated ot old. Tea was often mixed with other leaves of no worth; of fifteen samples examined in 1874 all were thus bulked out. Yellow-dyed flour was mixed with mustard: pepper was diluted with ground rice, or fine sand. Peppercorns were rolled by cunning hands from linseed cake and clay, flavoured with cayenne. Cayenne pepper itself was mixed with red lead, to increase its volume and improve its colour. Apart from these, wiles of the. wicked, many dangerous or detrimental substances round their way into foodstuffs through ignorance and carelessness. Whatever the object of the vendor, the result ot such mishandling of foodstuffs could not but injure public health. To protect the people of Nt w Zealand, the Food and Drugs Act was passed m 1908, and m 1924 was augmented by an amendment to prevent misleading advertising. The very complete regulations framed under the Act completely safeguard the liGilth of the community, and make the proswii a « <>i "!‘em ders rigorous. To keep close check of the: pnnty ot foodstuffs, the Dominion Laboratory was immUrd. Work of Laboratory The greater part of the work ot the laivraiory is the scientific examination of foodstuffs tor 01 deliberate adulteration or accidental wonlamimition. Besides this work on behal f oi the Public Health Department, they also carry out analyses tor the Police. Cuffoms and Agricultural Departments, and for local bodies throughout the Dominion. Besides '.lit head office at Wellington, branch laboratories are established in Auckland. Christchurch and Dunedin. 'l’esting of milk is one of the most important duties of the research chemists. New Zealand’s schoolchildren rely on milk to build up their healthy bodies. No housewife or mother is competent to tell adulterated milk from-pure. The most she can say is that it is not rich milk. But the chemists can jell. They have a test at the Dominion Laboratory which will discover the addition of even a teaspoonful of water to a bucket of milk. This is the freezing test, on which they are recognised as world authorities. It is a simple scheme. Milk, be it rich or poor quality, freezes at .55 to .56 degrees below zero on the centigrade scale. Water freezes at zero. The greater the quantity of water added, the nearer rhe freezing point of the mixture approaches to zero. The test is a safeguard to all concerned: the public are sure of pure milk, for diluted milk is almost sure to be detected; the milkman who sells naturally poor milk is free from danger of wrongful ■ ion: but the man who deliberately jjatfe'ffl? tnufc ever m slightly runs great risk'of'discovery.

It is claimed that before this test was introduced, milk sold in Wellington contained on an average five per cent, of added water. Of the 7000 gallons consumed daily- in Wellington and the Hutt Valley, then, 350 gallons were pure water, and somebody was turning a pretty profit by selling that 350 gallons of water at the price of milk. Bacterial content of milk must be watched carefully to safeguard the health of children. It is tested by the power of the milk to reduce the colour of methylene blue. In the two decades since this test was adopted, the bacterial purity of Wellington milk has greatly improved. i Drinking water is one of the vital services of a modern city. A s'ngle contaminated reservoir could spread plague through thousands of homes. The watchful chemists therefore examine drinking water supplies by microscope for organic matter, bv chemical tests for ammonia, nitrates and nitrites, and other substances in solution. Arsenic- in Beer Beer is examined for the presence of arsenic. That deadly poison has been known to find its way even into this healthful beverage. It usually does so through the coke used to dry the hops, but has been known to enter by use of impure sulphuric acid to invert the sugar in the brewing process. Beer and stout are closely studied both by the brewers and the chemists to prevent such mishaps, and also to keep check of the spirit content.

Jams and soft drinks purporting to be made from the actual fruit, are tested for the presence of colouring

matter, permitted only in certain synthetic drinks. New Zealand-made jams are specially pure. Vinegar is tested to ensure that it is brewed from malt, and not mixed from acetic acid. Vanilla essence is examined to find if it has been prepared chemically or from the bean. Synthetic vanillin is identical with natural vanillin, but essence prepared from the bean contains certain other natural oils which permit of identification. Salt is iodised to prevent thyroid trouble. But if there is too much iodine it will do just what it is iodised to prevent, and cause such trouble. So salt is analysed for its iodine content. Use of Preservatives

Indiscriminate use of preservatives is forbidden in New Zealand. Such use might disguise incipient composition, might conceal stale and dirty materials. Close check is kept on preserved foodstuffs, as well as of tinned and potted commodities. Household wares such as enamel saucepans are carefully tested. It was found a few years ago that certain fruit juices extracted antimony from cheap enamels in the cooking. Such wares were at once taken off the market. Shaving brushes are inspected for anthrax infection. In these and other ways the laboratory protects consumers from their own ignorance. The effect of such activities is tremendous, but little appreciated. The housewife goes happily about her marketing, accepting in good faith what she is given. Thanks to the guardian chemist, her faith is justified. She can shop in confidence, for there are those looking after her welfare who are better able than she to see that she is not cheated.