Among the many other familiar examples of food substitution, sophistication, and adulteration there are some of demonstrable hygienic disadvantage and others whose chief demerit lies in simple deception. Of practically all it may be said that they are indefensible from the standpoint of public policy since they are based on the intent to make foodstuffs appear other than what they really are. It is the opinion of some who have closely followed the course of food adulteration that, while the amount of general sophistication--legally permissible and otherwise--has greatly increased in recent years, the proportion of really injurious adulteration has fallen off. Be that as it may, it is plain that the opportunity for wholesale experimentation with new substances should not be allowed to rest without control in the hands of manufacturers and dealers largely impelled by commercial motives. So long as the motive of gain is allowed free scope, so long will a small minority of unscrupulous persons add cheap, inferior, and sometimes dangerous ingredients to foodstuffs. The net of restriction must be drawn tighter and tighter. The motives leading to the tampering with food fall mainly under three heads: (1) a desire to preserve food from spoiling or deterioration; (2) a puerile fancy--often skilfully fostered for mercenary reasons--for a conventional appearance, as for polished rice, bleached flour, and grass-green peas; and (3) intent to make the less valuable appear more valuable--deliberate fraud. Only the first-named motive can claim any legitimate justification, and its gratification by the use of chemical preservatives is surrounded with hygienic difficulties and uncertainty, as already set forth. From the unbiased view of human physiology the dangers of slow poisoning from chemically treated foods must be regarded as no less real because they are insidious and not easily traced. FOOTNOTES: [32] E. S. Reynolds, _Lancet_, I (1901), 166. [33] The sulphuric acid used in making glucose in the United States is authoritatively declared to be absolutely free from arsenic (report of hearing before Illinois State Food Standard Commission, June 21-23, 1916; see _Amer. Food Jour._, July, 1916, p. 315). [34] E. W. Miller, _Jour. Home Economics_, VIII (1916), 361. [35] Phelps and Stevenson, _Hyg. Lab., U.S. Public Health Service, Bull. 96_, 1914, p. 55. [36] Harrington and Richardson, _Manual of Practical Hygiene_, 5th ed., p. 224. [37] See Alice Hamilton, "Hygiene of the Painters' Trade," _U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bull. 120_, 1913. [38] In 1909 the value of foods canned in the United States amounted to about $300,000,000 (_U.S. Dept. of Agric., Bull. 196_, 1915). [39] W. D. Bigelow, _Amer. Food Jour._, XI (1916), 461. [40] _Arch. f. Hyg._, XLV (1902), 88; _ibid._, LXIII (1907), 67. [41] See, e.g., Harrington and Richardson, _Practical Hygiene_, 5th ed., p. 274. [42] _Ztschr. f. Hyg._, LXXV-LXXVI (1913-14), 55. [43] Bigelow, _loc. cit._