up to the present, and something like two out of ten would have been below the mark if the standard of solids not fats was put as high as 9.60. Dr. Vacher asked Dr. Brown whether, the two samples being analysed, one in a fresh, the other in a sour condition, the results obtained by the analyst who analysed the fresh would not, ceteris paribus, be more likely to be correct than those of the analyst who analysed the sour. Dr. Brown replied that the answer to that was that there was a regular diminution of the solids not fats owing to the decomposition of the milk, and allowance was therefore made corresponding to the age of the milk. Mr. Samuell said this was a very interesting discussion, and he would sit and listen to it with a great deal of pleasure, but he did not think it would aid him in forming his judgment in the case, because where two gentlemen disagreed so markedly as in this case as a matter of course nothing remained for him but to dismiss it. Summons dismissed with costs.

At Bath, William B. Beauchamp, 6, Abbey Church Yard, was summoned for having on the 30th May sold to H. G. Montagu, an inspector under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, one pint of milk, which was not of the nature, quality, and substance demanded. Mr. Moger prosecuted on behalf of the Sanitary Committee, and Mr. A. R. Poole, defended. Inspector Montagu deposed that on the 30th May last he visited No. 6, Abbey Church Yard, of which the defendant is the registered owner. He asked the female in the shop for a pint of new milk. She served him, and he told her he had purchased it for the purpose of being analysed by the Public Analyst, and asked her if she would have it divided into three parts. She said she would, and he accordingly divided it and put the milk into three separate bottles, which were sealed. He retained one bottle of the milk himself which he produced. He received the certificate from the Public Analyst in due course. He gave the ordinary price for the milk. He took six samples of milk that day, or which he gave the same price with one exception. By Mr. Poole: He had no regular time of calling on the dairymen. He had called at the defendant's shop before. He usually called on the dairymen about once a month. He did not pay particular attention to any one establishment. The milk he was served with was taken from a metal vessel on the counter. It was not taken from a pan behind the counter. He could not say whether the milk had been standing in the shop all day. He was supplied with the milk as new milk. By Lieut.-Colonel Ford: The shopwoman did not say that the new milk had not arrived. Mr. J. W. Gatehouse, City Analyst, was called and examined at some length by Mr. Poole for the purpose of showing that the feeding of cows and the differences in the animals themselves together with the season of the year made a difference in the quality of the miik. His standard of milk was 22 of fat but the average should not really be lower than 2'5. In this case he only found 1.48 of fat. He did not know whether that standard was higher than that at Bristol. If the greater portion of the milk had been sold in the morning and had then remained standing without being disturbed, there would have been a considerable formation of cream at the top of the milk. By agitation the cream would return and mix with the milk. It was possible that in the ordinary mode of dipping the first customers would get the richest milk. Continuing his evidence, Mr. Gatehouse said the quality was no better than skimmed milk. Mr. Pool addressed the Bench for the defence, and criticised the evidence given by the analyst and said he should call evidence to prove that the milk had not been tampered with in any way whatever. It was treated in the way in which milk is ordinarily treated, and if the earlier customers got milk of a rather better quality than the others it was not done with a fraudulent intent of any kind. In a case like this he contended that it was never intended any penalty should be inflicted by the legislature. Referring to the hour the inspector called for the milk, he said it was just at the time when the morning's milk would be in its poorest state, and it was, he urged, unfair of the inspector to call at that time of the day. Emanuel Green, farm bailiff to defendant, was called and deposed that all the milk was taken direct from the cows and sent in locked tins by rail to Bath. Witness saw the cows milked. As a matter of fact the first customers would get the best milk. Emily Candy deposed to having received the milk in question from which the inspector was served. The milk was served out of the trunk to customers, and was never tampered with in any way. At the time the inspector called there were about 3 or 4 gallons left. She had been accustomed to serve milk, and knew it to be a fact that milk at the bottom was poorer than at the top. This could not be avoided. If the cream were stirred it would float on the top but would not return to the milk. Mr. Lewis Vigis, chemist, 24, Monmouth Street, Bath, said from time to time he had examined defendant's milk. His opinion was that the milk became poorer as it was served out. After a short deliberation the Bench dismissed the case.

Important:

Recently a special case was stated by the Magistrate of the Thames Police Court at the request of W. T. Harrison, one of the sanitary inspectors of Poplar, to the effect that he, the magistrate, had

dismissed a complaint by the inspector against Henry Richards, a milk vendor, that the latter had sold milk adulterated with 20 per cent. of water (in support of which complaint the certificate of the Public Analyst for Poplar to the effect that the said milk was so adulterated was produced), on the ground that he, the magistrate, was of opinion that the said milk might have been a sample of very poor but genuine milk, from which some of the original richness had been abstracted by ladling out for sale, and that though he received the certificate of the said analyst as evidence of the constituents of the said milk, he was of opinion that it was for him and not the analyst to decide as to the fact of adulteration. After argument before the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court, the Judges remitted the case back to the magistrate with their opinion that his judgment was erroneous.

WE quote the following from the British Medical Journal of the 23rd July. We cannot at all agree with the comments made, and if 30 per cent. of water in butter milk is not "flagrant adulteration" we should very much like to know what is.

PROSECUTION UNDER THE SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS ACT.

There has just been given a decision of some importance in reference to the above Act. A farmer was recently convicted in Lancashire for selling butter-milk which, on analysis, was found to contain 30 per cent. of water; it being contended by the official analyst that 20 per cent. was a sufficient quantity of water to use in the process of churning. Evidence was brought for the defence to show that there could be no uniform percentage, as it depended on the temperature, sometimes as much as 50 per cent. of water being necessary. Notwithstanding, a conviction was obtained. An appeal was made, and the judges at once unanimously reversed the decision given in the lower court; and we cordially agree with their remarks, that the case was one which should never have been undertaken by the authorities. These latter should bear in mind that an Act such as the Sale of Food and Drugs is to put down flagrant adulteration, and not to be used as an agent for harassing different opinions on slender and insufficient grounds.

RECENT CHEMICAL PATENTS.

The following specifications have been recently published, and can be obtained from the Great Seal Office, Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, London.

The Chemist and Druggist; The Brewers' Guardian; The British Medical Journal; The Medical Press; The Pharmaceutical Journal; The Sanitary Record; The Miller; Journal of Applied Science; The Boston Journal of Chemistry; The Provisioner; The Practitioner; New Remedies; Proceedings of the American Chemical Society; Le Practicien; The Inventors' Record; New York Public Health; The Scientific American; Society of Arts Journal; Sanitary Engineer of New York; The Cowkeeper and Dairyman's Journal; The Chemists' Journal; Oil and Drug News; The Textile Record of America; Sugar Cane; Country Brewers' Gazette; The Medical Record; Oil and Drug Journal; Analysis of Simpler Salts, by H. A. Phillips; Report of The People v. Schrumpf, New York.

THE ANALYST.

SEPTEMBER, 1881.

157

THE NEW YORK ADULTERATION ACT.

We have pleasure in drawing attention to the reprint of the Adulteration Act for the State of New York published in our present number. It is, in our opinion, without doubt the most complete and perfect anti-adulteration Act that has yet been passed in any country. The advantages which it possesses over our own English Act are evident. A definition of adulteration, both as regards food and drugs, is contained in the Act itself, and that definition is such that it would be impossible, as far as we can see, to raise the foolish quibbles which from time to time have been raised in the administration of the English Sale of Food and Drugs Act.

The New York law also contains a special proviso by which it would not only be possible, but the duty of the State board of health to procure and publish from time to time a list of articles, mixtures, or compounds, which are exempted from the provisions of the Act.

The penalties to be imposed are moderate but decisive, and from the way in which the board of health are going to work at the present time, and judging from the reports in the Sanitary Engineer, which has been the leading paper in New York in carrying the matter so far through, we think there is no doubt that within a few months the Adulteration Act will be working in the State of New York in a more satisfactory manner than our own is, even after several years of friction and worry over technical grounds which have been raised by acute solicitors simply with the view of enabling those who really have been guilty of offences under the Act to escape from its penal consequences.

ON THE FIGURES OR PATTERNS WHICH DROPS OF VARIOUS FATS ASSUME UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS.

BY A. WYNTER BLYTH, M.R.C.S.

Read before the Society of Public Analysts, on 27th June, 1881. (Illustrated.)

I KNOW of no notice of the curious patterns which may be obtained by simply melting any fat and dropping it in the fluid state, on to water or on to smooth wet surfaces.

The general method is to melt the fat and then to drop it from a small glass rod held a few inches above the surface of water or moistened glass. Immediately the drop touches the water it solidifies in a definite form.

To attain success it is necessary that the fat as well as the water should be of a certain temperature, but with many of the glycerides and mixtures of glycerides, such for example as butter, butterine, dripping, &c., the range is very wide, so that if the fat is perfectly fluid and not above 100° C, and the water ranges from 0° to 15°, a pattern more or less perfect is obtainable.

Each fat appears to have its own distinctive pattern and can be identified by its pattern alone. On the other hand each fat has a variety of patterns, for every alteration of the experimental conditions modifies more or less the form of the congealed drops. If, however, the conditions under which each experiment is performed are precisely similar, then there is no difficulty in obtaining the same form or at least very similar forms any number of times.

The chief modifying conditions are the difference of temperature between the fluid fat and the water and the height from which the fat falls. I have found that from three to four inches is the best height, and that a greater fall than this tends to spread the films out and renders all patterns more or less similar.

Referring to individual forms

Butter. The experiments were made on several samples of genuine butter, as proved by analysis. The fat was melted and filtered and kept in an air bath at temperatures of from 400 to 80°, and then dropped from a clean warm glass rod on to water of from 10° to 15o. The most common and distinctive form obtained in this way was that of a beautiful foliated film not unlike the leaf of a pelargonium. Figs. 6 and 7 are accurate representations of the outline of these films, for they have been obtained by a process by which I have been enabled to transfer the film direct to the lithographic stone and thus have a direct impression. The details of delicate veining are, as might be expected, lost. The best pattern temperature for butter is 55°, the water being at 10°; but regular forms may be obtained up to 100o. At higher temperatures success is rare. I found that although butter of 40° to 50° when dropped on to water of 10° sets in a radiated star form, yet when dropped on to water of 8°, although momentarily there was a beautiful complicated foliation with many radiating wings, these wings suddenly mutually repelled each other, and the pattern fell or rather flew to pieces. Glass plates were prepared chemically clean by first treating with alcoholic soda and then washing with ether; the plate was then dipped into water and thus a thin water film obtained. On this perfectly smooth wet surface, butter and other fats were dropped. In the case of butter, the pattern lost much of its beauty, but was always very regular in outline. Figs. 1, 3 and 5 represent butter patterns on glass, and Fig. 2 an imperfect pattern on water. This is a very common form when the fat is not quite hot enough. In this case it was but three degrees above its melting point. Butter films are of extreme tenuity, and although several attempts to photograph them were made the light passed through almost as perfectly as through glass, therefore the photographic shadows were too indistinct to make any use of.

Butterine.—The various mixtures of animal fats in the market known as butterine or artificial butter give by no means identical patterns for they vary much in composition, but in each case the form can be distinguished from the butter films, and from the pattern alone it is always possible and often very easy to say whether a given film is butter or not. The best method to distinguish the artificial from the genuine product, is to take pure butter fat and the suspected sample and after melting them each at the same temperature to drop them on to the same glass plate side by side. Fig. 1 and Fig. 4 are patterns of pure butter and butterine treated in the manner suggested. The latter is full of minute crystals and is decidedly different in outline. All butterines examined have been found to possess this crystalline peculiarity. The