Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/678

 654 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

All milk of a doubtful quality is sent by the regular milk inspectors or others to the laboratory for analysis, and in the summer time, when "milk raids" are frequent, as many as seven hundred samples of milk are analyzed in a single week. The results are then reported to the Division of Inspections.

The division is also in constant receipt of all kinds of food, candies, etc., sent in by private persons with the request for analysis for poison, etc. Nine of these cases out of ten show nothing wrong, but still the laboratory authorities must always be ready to make the tests for the sake of one case out of a hundred.

The present administration has also undertaken a large num- ber of medical analyses to test the purity of many of the com- monest drugs. For this purpose the sanitary inspectors are requested to purchase small samples of certain medicines from apothecary shops in all parts of the city. Some of the results have been astounding, many well-known druggists having been detected selling adulterated medicines. For instance, the depart- ment found that spirits of ammonia was being largely sold throughout the city made with wood instead of with the proper grain alcohol. And yet wood alcohol is known to be poisonous, often causing paralysis, or even total blindness. Large quantities of impure phenacetine were also discovered by the chief chemist. Thus of 373 samples purchased in Manhattan and Brooklyn, 315 were found to be adulterated, or composed of a cheap and dan- gerous substitute called acetanilid.

Dr. Lederle made public the details of this preliminary inves- tigation of impure drugs on January 14, 1903, at the same time announcing that the department would continue its analyses besides prosecuting the guilty druggists. Naturally many of the pharmacists were at once up in arms at this onslaught. Yet too much credit cannot be given the Board of Health for its good work in this direction. The public has everything to gain, and the honest apothecary nothing to lose, by these chemical tests of much-used medicines.

V. THE BACTERIOLOGICAL WORK.

New York was the first city in the world to establish a munici- pal laboratory for bacteriological work. In 1892, several cases