Part 11

"The walnut catsup was therefore evidently strongly impregnated with copper. On informing the manufacturer of this fact, he assured me that the same method of preparing the liquor was generally pursued, and that he had manufactured the article in a like manner for upwards of twenty years.

"Such is the statement I wish to communicate; and if you will allow it a place in your Literary Chronicle, it may perhaps tend to put the unwary on their guard against the practice of preparing this sauce by boiling it in a copper, which certainly may contaminate the liquor, and render it poisonous."

FOOTNOTES:

[111] Literary Chronicle, No. 24, p. 379.

_Poisonous Custard._

The leaves of the cherry laurel, _prunus lauro-cerasus_, a poisonous plant, have a nutty flavour, resembling that of the kernels of peach-stones, or of bitter almonds, which to most palates is grateful. These leaves have for many years been in use among cooks, to communicate an almond or kernel-like flavour to custards, puddings, creams, _blanc-mange_, and other delicacies of the table.

It has been asserted, that the laurel poison in custards and other articles of cookery is, on account of its being used in very small quantities, quite harmless. To refute this assertion, numerous instances might be cited; and, among them, a recent one, in which four children suffered most severely from partaking of custard flavoured with the leaves of this poisonous plant.

"Several children at a boarding-school, in the vicinity of Richmond, having partaken of some custard flavoured with the leaves of the cherry laurel, as is frequently practised by cooks, four of the poor innocents were taken severely ill in consequence. Two of them, a girl six years of age, and a boy of five years old, fell into a profound sleep, out of which they could not be roused.

"Notwithstanding the various medical exertions used, the boy remained in a stupor ten hours; and the girl nine hours; the other two, one of which was six years old, a girl, and a girl of seven years, complained of severe pains in the epigastric region. They all recovered, after three days' illness. I am anxious to communicate to you this fact, being convinced that your publication is read at all the scholastic establishments in this part of the country. I hope you will allow these lines a corner in your Literary Chronicle, where they may contribute to put the unwary on their guard, against the deleterious effects of flavouring culinary dishes with that baneful herb, the Cherry Laurel.

"I am, with respect, your's, Sir, "THOMAS LIDIARD."[112]

What person of sense or prudence, then, would trust to the discretion of an ignorant cook, in mixing so dangerous an ingredient in his puddings and creams? Who but a maniac would choose to season his victuals with poison?

The water distilled from cherry laurel leaves is frequently mixed with brandy and other spiritous liquors, to impart to them the flavour of the cordial called _noyeau_, (see also page 195.)

This fluid, though long in frequent use as a flavouring substance, was not known to be poisonous until the year 1728; when the sudden death of two women, in Dublin, after drinking some of the common distilled cherry laurel water, demonstrated its deleterious nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[112] Literary Chronicle, No. 22, p. 348.--1819.

_Poisonous Anchovy Sauce._

Several samples which we have examined of this fish sauce have been found contaminated with lead.

The mode of preparation of this fish sauce, consists in rubbing down the broken anchovy in a mortar: and this triturated mass, being of a dark brown colour, receives, without much risk of detection, a certain quantity of Venetian red, added for the purpose of colouring it, which, if genuine, is an innocent colouring substance; but instances have occurred of this pigment having been adulterated with orange lead, which is nothing else than a better kind of minium, or red oxide of lead. The fraud may be detected, as stated p. 229.

The conscientious oilmen, less anxious with respect to colour, substitute for this poison the more harmless pigment, called Armenian bole.

The following recipe for making this fish sauce is copied from Gray's Supplement to the Pharmacopoeias, p. 241.

"Anchovies, 2 lbs. to 4 lbs. and a half; pulp through a fine hair sieve; boil the bones with common salt, 7 oz. in water 6 lbs.; strain; add flour 7 oz. and the pulp of the fish; boil; pass the whole through the sieve; colour with Venetian red to your fancy. It should produce one gallon."

_Adulteration of Lozenges._

Lozenges, particularly those into the composition of which substances enter that are not soluble in water, as ginger, cremor tartar, magnesia, &c., are often sophisticated. The adulterating ingredient is usually pipe-clay, of which a liberal portion is substituted for sugar. The following detection of this fraud was lately made by Dr. T. Lloyd.[113]

"Some ginger lozenges having lately fallen into my hands, I was not a little surprised to observe, accidentally, that when thrown into a coal fire, they suffered but little change. If one of the lozenges was laid on a shovel, previously made red-hot, it speedily took fire; but, instead of burning with a blaze and becoming converted into a charcoal, it took fire, and burnt with a feeble flame for scarcely half a minute, and there remained behind a stony hard substance, retaining the form of the lozenge. This unexpected result led me to examine these lozenges, which were bought at a respectable chemist's shop in the city; and I soon became convinced, that, in the preparation of them, a considerable quantity of common pipe-clay had been substituted for sugar. On making a complaint about this fraud at the shop where the article was sold, I was informed that there were two kinds of ginger lozenges kept for sale, the one at three-pence the ounce, and the other at six-pence per ounce; and that the article furnished to me by mistake was the cheaper commodity: the latter were distinguished by the epithet _verum_, they being composed of sugar and ginger only; but the former were manufactured partly of white Cornish clay, with a portion of sugar only, with ginger and Guinea pepper. I was likewise informed, that of Tolu lozenges, peppermint lozenges and ginger pearls, and several other sorts of lozenges, two kinds were kept; that the _reduced_ articles, as they were called, were manufactured for those very clever persons in their own conceit, who are fond of haggling, and insist on buying better bargains than other people, shutting their eyes to the defects of an article, so that they can enjoy the delight of getting it cheap; and, secondly for those persons, who being but bad paymasters, yet, as the manufacturer, for his own credit's sake, cannot charge more than the usual price of the articles, he thinks himself therefore authorised to adulterate it in value, to make up for the risk he runs, and the long credit he must give."

The comfits called ginger pearls, are frequently adulterated with clay. These frauds may be detected in the manner stated, page 225.

FOOTNOTES:

[113] Literary Gazette, No. 146.

_Poisonous Olive Oil._

This commodity is sometimes contaminated with lead, because the fruit which yields the oil is submitted to the action of the press between leaden plates; and it is, moreover, a practice (particularly in Spain) to suffer the oil to become clear in leaden cisterns, before it is brought to market for sale. The French and Italian olive oil is usually free from this impregnation.

Olive oil is sometimes mixed with oil of poppy seeds: but, by exposing the mixture to the freezing temperature, the olive oil freezes, while that of the poppy seeds remains fluid; and as oils which freeze with most difficulty are most apt to become rancid, olive oil is deteriorated by the mixture of poppy oil.

Good olive oil should have a pale yellow colour, somewhat inclining to green; a bland taste, without smell; and should congeal at 38° Fahrenheit. In this country, it is frequently met with rancid.

The presence of lead is detected by shaking, in a stopped vial, one part of the suspected oil, with two or three parts of water impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen. This agent will render the oil of a dark brown or black colour, if any metal, deleterious to health, be present. The practice of keeping this oil in pewter or leaden cisterns, as is often the case, is objectionable; because the oil acts upon the metal. The dealers in this commodity assert, that it prevents the oil from becoming rancid: and hence some retailers often suffer a pewter measure to remain immersed in the oil.

_Adulteration of Mustard._

Genuine mustard, either in powder, or in the state of a paste ready for use, is perhaps rarely to be met with in the shops. The article sold under the name of _genuine Durham mustard_, is usually a mixture of mustard and common wheaten flour, with a portion of Cayenne pepper, and a large quantity of bay salt, made with water into a paste, ready for use. Some manufacturers adulterate their mustard with radish-seed and pease flour.

It has often been stated, that a fine yellow colour is given to mustard by means of turmeric. We doubt the truth of this assertion. The presence of the minutest quantity of turmeric may instantly be detected, by adding to the mustard a few drops of a solution of potash, or any other alkali, which changes the bright yellow colour, to a brown or deep orange tint.

Two ounces and a half of Cayenne pepper, 1-1/2 lbs. of bay salt, 8 lbs. of mustard flour, and 1-1/2 lbs. of wheaten flour, made into a stiff paste, with the requisite quantity of water, in which the bay-salt is previously dissolved, forms the so-called _genuine Durham mustard_, sold in pots. The salt and Cayenne pepper contribute materially to the keeping of ready-made mustard.

There is therefore nothing deleterious in the usual practice of adulterating this commodity of the table. The fraud only tends to deteriorate the quality and flavour of the genuine article itself.

_Adulteration of Lemon Acid._

It is well known to every one, that the expressed juice of lemons is extremely apt to spoil, on account of the sugar, mucilage, and extractive matter which it contains; and hence various means have been practised, with the intention of rendering it less perishable, and less bulky. The juice has been evaporated to the consistence of rob; but this always gives an unpleasant empyreumatic taste, and does not separate the foreign matters, so that it is still apt to spoil when agitated on board of ship in tropical climates. It has been exposed to frost, and part of the water removed under the form of ice; but this is liable to all the former objections; and, besides, where lemons are produced in sufficient quantity, there is not a sufficient degree of cold. The addition of a portion of spirit to the inspissated juice, separates the mucilage, but not the extractive matter and the sugar. By means, however, of separating the foreign matters associated with it, in the juice, by chemical processes unnecessary to be detailed here, citric acid is now manufactured, perfectly pure, and in a crystallised form, and is sold under the name of concrete lemon acid. In this state it is extremely convenient, both for domestic and medicinal purposes. One drachm, when dissolved in one ounce of water, is equal in strength to a like bulk of fresh lemon juice. To communicate the lemon flavour, it is only necessary to rub a lump of sugar on the rind of a lemon to become impregnated with a portion of the essential oil of the fruit, and to add the sugar to the lemonade, negus, punch, shrub, jellies or culinary sauces, prepared with the pure citric acid.

Fraudulent dealers often substitute the cheaper tartareous acid, for citric acid. The negus and lemonade made by the pastry-cooks, and the liquor called punch, sold at taverns in this metropolis, is usually made with tartareous acid.

To discriminate citric acid from tartareous acid, it is only necessary to add a concentrated solution of the suspected acid, to a concentrated solution of muriate of potash, taking care that the solution of the acid is in excess. If a precipitate ensues, the fraud is obvious, because citric acid does not produce a precipitate with a solution of muriate or potash.

Or, by adding to a saturated solution of tartrate of potash, a saturated solution of the suspected acid, in excess, which produces with it an almost insoluble precipitate in minute granular crystals. Pure citric acid produces no such effect when added in excess to tartrate of potash.

_Poisonous Mushrooms._

Mushrooms have been long used in sauces and other culinary preparations; yet there are numerous instances on record of the deleterious effects of some species of these _fungi_, almost all of which are fraught with poison.[114] Pliny already exclaims against the luxury of his countrymen in this article, and wonders what extraordinary pleasure there can be in eating such dangerous food.[115]

But if the palate must be indulged with these treacherous luxuries, or, as Seneca calls them, "voluptuous poison,"[116] it is highly necessary that the mild eatable mushrooms, should be gathered by persons skilful enough to distinguish the good from the false, or poisonous, which is not always the case; nor are the characters which distinguish them strongly marked.

The following statement is published by Mr. Glen, surgeon, of Knightsbridge:

"A poor man, residing in Knightsbridge, took a walk in Hyde Park, with the intention of gathering some mushrooms. He collected a considerable number, and, after stewing them, began to eat them. He had finished the whole, with the exception of about six or eight, when, about eight or ten minutes from the commencement of his meal, he was suddenly seized with a dimness, or mist before his eyes, a giddiness of the head, with a general trembling and sudden loss of power;--so much so, that he nearly fell off the chair; to this succeeded loss of recollection: he forgot where he was, and all the circumstances of his case. This deprivation soon went off, and he so far rallied as to be able, though with difficulty, to get up, with the intention of going to Mr. Glen for assistance--a distance of about five hundred yards: he had not proceeded more than half way, when his memory again failed him; he lost his road, although previously well acquainted with it. He was met by a friend, who with difficulty learned his state, and conducted him to Mr. Glen's house. His countenance betrayed great anxiety: he reeled about, like a drunken man, and was greatly inclined to sleep; his pulse was low and feeble. Mr. Glen immediately gave him an emetic draught. The poison had so diminished the sensibility of the stomach, that vomiting did not take place for near twenty minutes, although another draught had been exhibited. During this interval his drowsiness increased to such a degree, that he was only kept awake by obliging him to walk round the room with assistance; he also, at this time, complained of distressing pains in the calves of his legs.--Full vomiting was at length produced. After the operation of the emetic, he expressed himself generally better, but still continued drowsy. In the evening Mr. Glen found him doing well."

The following case is recorded in the Medical Transactions, vol. ii.

"A middle-aged man having gathered what he called champignons, they were stewed, and eaten by himself and his wife; their child also, about four years old, ate a little of them, and the sippets of bread which were put into the liquor. Within five minutes after eating them, the man began to stare in an unusual manner, and was unable to shut his eyes. All objects appeared to him coloured with a variety of colours. He felt a palpitation in what he called his stomach; and was so giddy, that he could hardly stand. He seemed to himself swelled all over his body. He hardly knew what he did or said; and sometimes was unable to speak at all. These symptoms continued in a greater or less degree for twenty-four hours; after which, he felt little or no disorder. Soon after he perceived himself ill, one scruple of white vitriol was given him, and repeated two or three times, with which he vomited plentifully.

"The woman, aged thirty-nine, felt all the same symptoms, but in a higher degree. She totally lost her voice and her senses, and was either stupid, or so furious that it was necessary she should be held. The white vitriol was offered to her, of which she was capable of taking but very little; however, after four or five hours, she was much recovered: but she continued many days far from being well, and from enjoying her former health and strength. She frequently fainted for the first week after; and there was, during a month longer, an uneasy sense of heat and weight in her breast, stomach, and bowels, with great flatulence. Her head was, at first waking, much confused; and she often experienced palpitations, tremblings, and other hysteric affections, to all which she had ever before been a stranger.

"The child had some convulsive agitations of his arms, but was otherwise little affected. He was capable of taking half a scruple of ipecacuanha, with which he vomited, and was soon perfectly recovered."

MUSHROOM CATSUP.

The edible mushroom is the basis of the sauce called mushroom catsup; a great proportion of which is prepared by gardeners who grow the fungi. The mushrooms employed for preparing this sauce are generally those which are in a putrefactive state, and not having found a ready sale in the market; for no vegetable substance is liable to so rapid a spontaneous decomposition as mushrooms. In a few days after the fungus has been removed from the dung-bed on which it grows, it becomes the habitation of myriads of insects; and, if even the saleable mushroom be attentively examined, it will frequently be found to swarm with life.

FOOTNOTES:

[114] Fungi plerique veneno turgent. Linn. Amæn. Acad.

[115] Quæ voluptas tanta ancipitis cibi?--Plin. Nat. Hist. xxii. 23.

[116] Sen. Ep. 95.

_Poisonous Soda Water._

The beverage called soda water is frequently contaminated both with copper and lead; these metals being largely employed in the construction of the apparatus for preparing the carbonated water,[117] and the great excess of carbonic acid which the water contains, particularly enables it to act strongly on the metallic substances of the apparatus; a truth, of which the reader will find no difficulty in convincing himself, by suffering a stream of sulphuretted hydrogen gas to pass through the water.--See p. 70.

FOOTNOTES:

[117] Some manufacturers have been hence induced to construct the apparatus for manufacturing soda water wholly either of earthenware or of glass. Mr. Johnston, of Greek Street, Soho, was the first who pointed out to the public the absolute necessity of this precaution.

_Food poisoned by Copper Vessels._

Many kinds of viands are frequently impregnated with copper, in consequence of the employment of cooking utensils made of that metal. By the use of such vessels in dressing food, we are daily liable to be poisoned; as almost all acid vegetables, as well as sebaceous or pinguid substances, employed in culinary preparations, act upon copper, and dissolve a portion of it; and too many examples are met with of fatal consequences having ensued from eating food which had been dressed in copper vessels not well cleaned from the oxide of copper which they had contracted by being exposed to the action of air and moisture.

The inexcusable negligence of persons who make use of copper vessels has been productive of mortality, so much more terrible, as they have exerted their action on a great number of persons at once. The annals of medicine furnish too many examples in support of this assertion, to render it necessary to insist more upon it here.

Mr. Thiery, who wrote a thesis on the noxious quality of copper, observes, that "our food receives its quantity of poison in the kitchen by the use of copper pans and dishes. The brewer mingles poison in our beer, by boiling it in copper vessels. The sugar-baker employs copper pans; the pastry-cook bakes our tarts in copper moulds; the confectioner uses copper vessels: the oilman boils his pickles in copper or brass vessels, and verdigris is plentifully formed by the action of the vinegar upon the metal.

"Though, after all, a single dose be not mortal, yet a quantity of poison, however small, when taken at every meal, must produce more fatal effects than are generally apprehended; and different constitutions are differently affected by minute quantities of substances that act powerfully on the system."

The author of a tract, entitled, "Serious Reflections on the Dangers attending the Use of Copper Vessels," asserts that a numerous and frightful train of diseases is occasioned by the poisonous effects of pernicious matter received into the stomach insensibly with our victuals.

Dr. Johnston[118] gives an account of the melancholy catastrophe of three men being poisoned, after excruciating sufferings, in consequence of eating food cooked in an unclean copper vessel, on board the Cyclops frigate; and, besides these, thirty-three men became ill from the same cause.

The following case[119] is related by Sir George Baker, M. D.

"Some cyder, which had been made in a gentleman's family, being thought too sour, was boiled with honey in a brewing vessel, the rim of which was capped with lead. All who drank this liquor were seized with a bowel colic, more or less violently. One of the servants died very soon in convulsions; several others were cruelly tortured a long time. The master of the family, in particular, notwithstanding all the assistance which art could give him, never recovered his health; but died miserably, after having almost three years languished under a most tedious and incurable malady."

Too much care and attention cannot be taken in preserving all culinary utensils of copper, in a state unexceptionably fit for their destined purpose. They should be frequently tinned, and kept thoroughly clean, nor should any food ever be suffered to remain in them for a longer time than is absolutely necessary to their preparation for the table. But the sure preventive of its pernicious effect, is, to banish copper utensils from the kitchen altogether.

The following wholesome advice on this subject is given to cooks by the author of an excellent cookery book.[120]

"Stew-pans and soup-kettles should be examined every time they are used; these, and their covers, must be kept perfectly clean and well tinned, not only on the inside, but about a couple of inches on the outside; so much mischief arises from their getting out of repair; and, if not kept nicely tinned, all your work will be in vain; the broths and soups will look green and dirty, and taste bitter and poisonous, and will be spoiled both for the eye and palate, and your credit will be lost; and as the health, and even the life, of the family depends upon this; the cook may be sure her employer had rather pay the tin-man's bill than the doctor's."

The senate of Sweden, in the year 1753, prohibited copper vessels, and ordered that none but such as were made of iron should be used in their fleet and armies.

FOOTNOTES:

[118] Johnston's Essay on Poison, p. 102.

[119] Medical Transactions, vol. i. p. 213.

[120] Apicius Redivivus, p. 91.

_Food Poisoned by Leaden Vessels._

Various kinds of food used in domestic economy, are liable to become impregnated with lead.