The Funny Side of Physic / Or, The Mysteries of Medicine, Presenting the Humorous and Serious Sides of Medical Practice. An Exposé of Medical Humbugs, Quacks, and Charlatans in All Ages and All Countries.

by Addison Darre Crabtre

“We find the lowest order of intelligences standing on a potato. Only one step above this class, another order is found on a hoe-cake. One degree above this we meet with the class that has risen in the scale of being as high as it is possible for mortals to rise on a pancake. Head and shoulders above all of these classes we find the highest order of intelligences, with large and well-developed brains, and noble characters, standing securely on their wheaten loaf.”

Since bread, then, is the “staff of life,” the sin of its adulteration is the greatest of all wrongs to the human family.

Flour is often adulterated with plaster, white earth, alum, magnesia, etc.

To detect plaster, burn some of the bread to ashes, and the white grains will be discovered.

Alum is a very pernicious ingredient of adulteration, intended to make the bread white and light. It is often mixed in inferior flour. It is detected thus: Soak the loaf till soft in water, adding sufficient warm water to make it thin; stir it well, and set it a few hours; then strain it and boil it, to evaporate most of the water. After it stands a while, and cools, the crystals of alum will be precipitated. You may then tell it by taste.

Magnesia, so often mixed with inferior flour, to make the bread appear light, is injurious to children and invalids. You may detect it by burning the bread, and finding the magnesia in the ashes.

Soda, or potash. Much soda produces dyspepsia, sour stomach, and burning. To find potash, or soda, break up the bread, and pour upon it sufficient hot water to cover it. When it is cool, take a piece of litmus paper (obtained at the apothecary’s), wet it in vinegar, and put it into the dish with the bread and water. The potash will turn the litmus blue again. The more potash, the sooner it changes. In some countries it is known that bread is adulterated by copper.

Butter.

Butter stands next to bread, as an article of diet. It is adulterated, with difficulty, with lard; but the usual way is to mix very cheap butter with a quantity of good butter. Butter is colored by carrots, yellow ochre, and yolks of eggs, and “adulterated by sand and chalk.” To detect all of these, melt the butter in hot water. The coloring will separate and join the water, and the other adulterations settle to the bottom.

Milk.