The world at large has almost forgotten Accum's celebrated work, "Death in the Pot;" a new generation has indeed sprung up since it was written, and fraudulent tradesmen and manufacturers have gone on in silence, and, up to this time, in security, falsifying the food and picking the pockets of the people. Startling indeed as were the revelations in that remarkable book, yet it had little effect in reforming the abuses it exposed. General denunciations of grocers did not touch individuals of the craft, and they were consequently not driven to improve the quality of their wares. The _Lancet_ Commission went to work in a different manner. In Turkey, when of old they caught a baker giving false weight, or adulterating the staff of life, they nailed his ear to the door-post, "pour encourager les autres." Dr. Hassall, like a modern Al Raschid, perambulated the town himself, or sent his trustworthy agents to purchase articles, upon all of which the inexorable microscope was set to work, and every fraudulent sample, after due notice given, subjected its vendor to be pinned for ever to the terrible pages of the Commissioners' report. In this manner direct responsibility was obtained. If the falsification denounced was not the work of the retailer, he was glad enough to shift the blame upon the manufacturer; and thus the truth came out. A gun suddenly fired into a rookery could not cause a greater commotion than this publication of the names of dishonest tradesmen; nor does the daylight, when you lift a stone, startle ugly and loathsome things more quickly than the pencil of light, streaming through a quarter-inch lens, surprised in their naked ugliness the thousand and one illegal substances which enter more or less into every description of food that it will pay to adulterate. Nay, to such a pitch of refinement has the art of falsification of alimentary substances reached, that the very articles used to adulterate are adulterated; and while one tradesman is picking the pockets of his customers, a still more cunning rogue is, unknown to himself, deep in his own! The manner in which food is adulterated is not only one of degree, but of kind. The most simple of all sophistications, and that which is most harmless, is the mixture of inferior qualities of the same substance. Indeed, if the price charged were according to quality, it would be no fraud at all; but this adjustment rarely takes place. Secondly, the mixture of cheaper articles of another kind. Thirdly, the surreptitious introduction of materials which, taken in large quantities, are prejudicial to health; and, fourthly, the admixture of the most deadly poisons in order to improve the appearance of the article "doctored."