Epist. 19, Lib. 1, c. 12.
[571]. Lectures on the Structure and Physiology of the Urinary and Genital Organs, p. 184.
[572]. The details and progress of the imposture may be seen in successive volumes of the Medical and Physical Journal, viz. vol. xx, p. 402, 527; xxi, p. 60; xxiv, p. 309; xxix, p. 109, 409, 469; xxx, p. 21 103, 187.
[573]. She also swore that during the whole period she had no evacuations except by urine.
[574]. Jussieu has given an account of a Portuguese girl, of fifteen years of age, who had been born without a tongue, and he refers to a similar case recorded eight years before by a surgeon of Saumur, where the subject was a boy, who had lost his tongue by gangrene, and yet to a certain degree, was able to perform the functions of it. A case of a similar nature, together with a reference to several other instances, stands recorded in the annals of our own country, and may be found in the Philosophical Transactions.
[575]. Op. Citat. See also a paper by Dr. Vetch, in the Edinburgh Med. & Surg. Journ. Vol. iv. p. 157.
[576]. “A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons, by Frederick Accum.” A work which is perhaps better known by the title of Death in the Pot.
[577]. In this country, bread is chiefly divided into white, wheaten, and household, differing only in degree of purity; in the first, all the bran is separated; in the second, only the coarser; in the third, none at all; so that fine bread is made only of flour; wheaten bread of flour with a mixture of the finer bran; and household, of the whole substance of the grain, without taking out either the coarse bran, or fine flour. Stat. 8 Ann, c. 18. In the statute of assize of bread and ale, to be hereafter noticed, (51 Hen. 3,) mention is made of wastel-bread, cocket-bread, and bread of treet; which answer to the three sorts of bread above mentioned, viz. white, wheaten, and household-bread.
The bread of the London bakers maybe certainly considered as forming a very distinct species, although by no means a definite one; there are no less than six different kinds of flour brought into the London market, which are designated by the following terms, viz. 1, fine flour; 2, seconds; 3, middlings; 4, fine middlings; 5, coarse middlings; 6, twenty-penny flour; besides which the London bread-flour is not unfrequently deteriorated by having beans and peas ground up with it: now it is a fact generally admitted that the very best wheaten flour can alone produce beautifully white bread, unless some bleaching substance be employed, in which case however inferior flour may be made into bread equally specious to the eye; for such a purpose alum is universally employed by the London bakers, and it has become a medical question whether the health of the community is likely to be affected by the practice. We should say that, generally, so small a proportion as ten or fifteen grains of alum in a quartern loaf could hardly produce any mischief, although we are inclined to think that certain constitutions may be sensible to its influence, and that infants may occasionally suffer from it; these effects are of course more likely to occur to persons who only visit London occasionally, although upon this subject some important fallacies may exist; and it is by no means satisfactorily established that the costiveness, which is sometimes experienced by country residents on their first coming to London, arises from the alum present in the bread; for admitting even that it depends upon the bread, it may be connected with the change in the relative coarseness of the flour alone, for we have shewn in another work (Pharmacologia, edit. 5, page 160) that bran renders wheaten flour laxative from its mechanical action upon the inner coats of the intestines. But a much more iniquitous practice than that of adding alum to bread has been detected: bakers have been convicted of using gypsum, pipe-clay, and chalk, and not long since a very extensive fraud was carried on in Cornwall, where a very considerable portion of the Porcelain clay (decomposed felspar) from Saint Annes, was introduced into the bread; and the author of this note was lately informed by Mr. Hume, of Long Acre, that on examining some biscuits prepared for the use of the navy, he found as much as eight per cent of gypsum. Dr. Reines observes that this adulteration is very common in Germany, where the same mills are employed to grind corn for the inhabitants, and gypsum for the purpose of a mineral manure to the lands. It may be necessary to remark, before quitting the subject of the adulteration of bread, that we possess no summary and unexceptionable chemical test for the detection of alum, since common salt, which necessarily enters into the composition of the loaf, often contains saline impurities which may occasion precipitates like those we might attribute to alum.
[578]. This act of the 51st Hen. 3, stat. 6, (entitled a Statute of the Pillory and Tumbril) is worthy of notice, as it is we believe the first in which the adulteration of human food is specially noticed and prohibited. It is thereby enacted that six lawful men shall collect the measures and weights of the town, as well of taverns as other places, and one loaf of every sort of bread. Afterwards twelve lawful men shall swear to make true answer of the price of wheat, first, second, and third, of barley, and oats; and of the price of bread, and for what default a baker ought to be amerced or to be judged unto the pillory; also if any steward or bailiff for any bribe doth release punishment of the pillory and tumbril. Also if they have in the town a pillory of convenient strength; next of the price of wine, and if any corrupted wine be in the town, or such as is not wholesome for man’s body; also of the assize of ale, and what brewers have sold contrary to the assize, and ought to be judged to the tumbril; also if there be any that sell by one measure, and buy by another. Also if any butcher do sell contagious flesh, or that died of the murrain. Also of cooks that seethe flesh or fish with bread or water, or any otherwise that is not wholesome for man’s body, or after that they have kept it so long that it loseth its natural wholesomeness, and then seethe it again and sell it. Also of forestallers and regrators. The statute concludes by enacting that when a quarter of barley is sold for two shillings, four quarts of ale shall be sold for a penny; when for two and sixpence, the seven quarts for twopence; when for three shillings, three quarts for a penny; when for three shillings and sixpence, five quarts for twopence; when for four shillings, two quarts for one penny, and so onward the prices shall increase and decrease after the rate of sixpence.