The American characteristic of controlling their own personal affairs, and the resulting disinclination to resort to anything savouring of parental governmental interference, has probably had its effect in retarding early systematic action in the matter of adulteration. Sporadic attempts to secure legislative restrictions have, it is true, occasionally been made, but the laws passed were almost invariably of a specific nature, designed to meet some isolated case, and were destined to share the fate of most legislation of the kind--the particular adulteration being for the nonce suppressed, the law became practically a dead letter. Subsequent effort to obtain more comprehensive laws inclined to the other extreme, and the enactments secured were so general in scope, and so deficient in details, that loopholes were inadvertently allowed to remain, through which the crafty adulterator often managed to escape. The present food legislation in the United States was to some extent anticipated in 1848 by an Act of Congress to secure the purity of imported drugs. In this enactment these are directed to be tested by the standards established by the various official pharmacopœias; twenty-three are specifically enumerated, the most important being Peruvian bark and opium. The Act is still in force. All previous efforts to regulate the quality of our food supply culminated in 1877 in formal action being taken by several of the State Boards of Health, at whose instance laws against adulteration were formulated, and chemists commissioned to collect and examine samples of alimentary substances, and furnish reports on the subject. These may be found in the publications of the same, notably in the volumes issued by the New York, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Jersey Boards. The service rendered to the public by these investigations is almost incalculable, and the annual reports containing the results of the same are fraught with interest. For the first time we are placed in possession of trustworthy statistics, indicating the extent of food sophistication in this country. The annual report of the New York City Board of Health for the year 1885 furnishes the following statistics:-- Milk examined 7,006 samples. Adulterated milk destroyed 1,701 quarts. Candy destroyed 72,700 lbs. Cheese „ 5,700 „ Packages of tea, ordered out of sale 266 Canned goods condemned 39,905 „ Pickles „ „ 4,000 Coffee „ „ 4,100 „ Pepper, spices, and baking powder 1,455 „ Meat and fish 790,410 „ Fruit 212,000 „ Total inspections 43,665 Complaints made 5,786 Fines collected $2,070