Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/387

Rh fire in 1890 and rebuilt with important improvements. The new medical building was opened three years ago. The university library, erected almost wholly by private subscription, was completed in 1892. The chemical building was first occupied in 1895, and a new building for applied science was used for the first time by the section of state medicine.

The McCumber-Heyburn-Hepburn federal food and drug law goes into effect on January the first. It includes in its provisions all substances intended for human consumption. It is the most comprehensive measure ever enacted by congress for the control of interstate industries. Its provisions apply to the District of Columbia and to the territories, to exports and imports and to interstate shipments. To receive full benefits from its operation, it will be necessary for each state and city to maintain cooperative inspection over its own commerce, for the law will j not apply to adulteration and misbranding practised wholly within the state.

The enforcement of any law depends upon evidence. For this reason it is difficult to enforce laws against industrial combinations and discriminations because the evidence of violation can only be had through a knowledge of the inward transactions of the interest. In enforcing the food law the secret schemes of a board of directors or a manufacturing manager will be at once liable to detection, by an examination or analysis of the product put upon the market. The profession of chemistry is well equipped with means for detecting adulteration and misbranding. Methods of analyses have already been established beyond dispute, and a wide and accurate knowledge of the standard qualities of food and drug substances has been compiled. In enforcing this law, however, the effect upon the health of the use of minimum quantities of antiseptics, like benzoic acid to preserve such fruit and vegetable condiments as are left open in the bottle or jar by the consumer until used up, will be controverted. Some manufacturers began in an experimental way several years ago to put up these goods without antiseptics, and several of the large firms announce that the antiseptic is no longer necessary if the product is properly sterilized and packed in a small package. Others contend that an immediate prohibition of antiseptics will destroy their business. This is one of the honest problems in the enforcement of food laws, and several of the states have found a good solution for the present in requiring plain labeling to show the name and the amount of the antiseptic used in preserving catsups, sweet pickles and similar foods. This labeling puts a competitive trade influence to work which is more effective than prohibitive statute law.

Some provisions of the law will come in conflict with previous laws enacted by congress relating to special products. Under the general law the term 'butter' would mean the unadulterated fat from milk or cream. A previous federal law, however, permits the unqualified term 'butter' to apply to milk fat which contains 'added harmless color.' Again, under the food law the term 'wine' would be defined to be the product made by the normal alcoholic fermentation of the juice of sound, ripe grapes, and 'sweet wine' would mean wine made sweet by arresting alcoholic fermentation. But a previous statute defines sweet wine to apply without added labeling to a product containing added cane or beet sugar. There should be no objection to the sale of butter containing added harmless coloring matter or wine containing added beet or cane sugar. But the interests in whose behalf these definitions were incorporated in the federal statutes wish to continue these colorations and additions