About the Work
Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning Unmasked; or, Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle is an early-nineteenth-century exposé published in London by Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper of Paternoster Row, with printing by Marchant of Ingram-Court. The work is attributed to an author writing under the pseudonym “An Enemy to Fraud and Villany,” who presents himself throughout as a fellow sufferer of the public and a defender of public health and morality.
The book is structured as a comprehensive investigation into the systematic adulteration of food, drink, and household goods sold to the British public. Its declared scope encompasses wines, spirits, beer, bread, flour, tea, sugar, spices, cheesemongery, pastry, confectionary, medicines, coals, painters’ colours, hats, broad cloth, kerseymeres, linens, laces, cambrics, silks, jewellery, and stationery. The author promises not only to expose the fraudulent practices of dealers but also to provide tests by which consumers may detect adulterated goods, alongside an exposé of medical quackery and the frauds of pawnbrokers and madhouse-keepers.
The work is framed as a public duty discharged in the face of expected hostility. The author anticipates that wicked dealers will abhor the book and that he will be exposed to their rancour, but he takes consolation in having brought “deeds of darkness to light.” The front matter includes an address to the reader, a memorandum on sudden deaths in the metropolis, and an introduction citing the Literary Gazette and the work of Mr. Accum on culinary poisons. The book is dedicated to promoting inquiry into what the author terms “nefarious transactions” in the food and drink trades.
The publisher’s advertising matter preceding the main text lists numerous practical works on agriculture, sport, and domestic economy, including treatises on farriery, dog breeds, sporting anecdotes, angling, British grasses, breeding cows, poultry, and orchards. These advertisements suggest the book was marketed to a readership interested in practical domestic management and rural life, as well as urban consumers concerned about the safety of their food.
Context
The book emerges from a period of intense public concern about food safety and adulteration in early-nineteenth-century London. The author repeatedly cites contemporary authorities, including Mr. Accum’s work on culinary poisons, the Literary Gazette, the New Monthly Magazine, the Monthly Gazette of Health, Dr. Reece’s publications, and the Mechanics’ Magazine. These citations place the work within a broader reformist literature that sought to expose the dangers of unregulated food production and the complicity of government in permitting such practices to continue.
The author’s introduction quotes a review of Mr. Accum’s work on culinary poisons from the Literary Gazette (No. 156), which states that “we are condemned to swallow swindling or poison in almost everything we eat or drink,” explaining the prevalence of disorders and the briefness of human existence. The review describes Mr. Accum’s account of Thames water, polluted by one hundred thousand cloacinae, hospitals, slaughterhouses, and manufactories, and claims that bread is “a crutch to help us onward to the grave.”
The work reflects a particular moment in the history of food regulation, when the trade in adulterated goods was widespread but legal controls were minimal or poorly enforced. The author notes that the eager and insatiable thirst for gain is proof against prohibitions, and he argues that government should legislate against adulteration. He quotes Mr. Accum’s reflection on English law: a highway robber is sentenced to death, while one who distributes slow poison to a community escapes with a trifling fine. Large profits, often several hundred per cent, enable culprits to absorb the trivial losses of detection.
The book also engages with contemporary debates about public health, taxation, and government responsibility. The author argues that public health and public morals should be the greatest solicitude of government, instead of extracting profit from deception. He suggests that taxing alcoholic liquors to prohibition would reduce felony, moral degradation, and the need for police, judges, and executioners, but notes that the revenue enriches the nation’s coffers. The sacra auri fames—the accursed hunger for gold—makes that appear relatively right which is absolutely wrong.
The work is addressed to “friend John” and “friend Bull,” personifications of the English public, suggesting an intended readership of ordinary consumers rather than specialists. The author employs a rhetorical style that combines moral indignation with practical instruction, offering both denunciations of fraud and detailed methods for detecting adulteration.
Structure of the Book
The book is organized into two main parts, each containing multiple sections. Part I addresses wines and spirits, while Part II covers a broader range of foodstuffs and household goods.
Part I opens with an introduction establishing the scale of the problem of adulteration. The author invokes the adage “Plures crapula quam gladius,” paraphrased as “Cookery depopulates like a pestilence,” and argues that adulteration has given a greater empire to death than famine, sword, cookery, and gastrophilism combined, causing tens of thousands of deaths yearly in the metropolis alone. He notes that spurious mixtures are made with such skill that they baffle experienced judges, and that processes are distributed among distinct operators in separate establishments to ensure secrecy.
Section I of Part I addresses the adulteration of wines and spirits and the tricks of dealers. The author argues that the frauds of wine and spirit brewers exceed those of all other adulterating trades. The art of manufacturing spurious wines is described as a regular trade, so perfected that operators could convert northern hedges into a vineyard, squeeze Bourdeaux out of the sloe, and Champagne from the apple. The section provides detailed accounts of how factitious port wine, sherry, champagne, claret, brandy, rum, gin, and shrub are manufactured from base ingredients and chemical additives.
Section II of Part I addresses the tests, or methods of ascertaining the good or bad qualities of wines and spirits. The author acknowledges that while tests exist for mineral poisons such as litharge and lead preparations, and for vegetable nostrums such as capsicum extract, no efficient tests exist except chemical analysis, because adulterants share chemical properties with the wines. He provides detailed methods for detecting lead, alum, artificial colouring, and for measuring the strength of wines using Mr. Brande’s method.
Section III of Part I addresses beer and ale. The author defends his claims against charges that they are mere “bug-a-boo” talk, offering proof from the Excise prosecutions listed in the Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons examining beer price and quality in 1819. He enumerates nine categories of adulterating ingredients, including cocculus indicus, black extract, nux vomica, opium, tobacco, essentia bina, heading stuff, capsicum, wormwood, and lime, and describes the five effects these ingredients are intended to produce.
Part II opens with a word or two by way of introduction, before proceeding through sections on bread and flour, meat and fish, tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar, spices, pickles and condiments, butter and dairy, confectionary and perfumery, medicines, coals, and painters’ colours and various textiles and goods.
The section on bread and flour addresses the adulteration of these staples, while the section on meat and fish covers the dangers of consuming out-of-season fish and other fraudulent practices. The section on tea, coffee, chocolate, and sugar provides extensive detail on the fabrication of factitious tea from sloe and ash-tree leaves, the adulteration of coffee with various substitutes, and the sophistication of chocolate and sugar.
The section on spices covers cayenne pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and other spices, providing tests for detecting adulteration. The section on pickles, vinegar, oil, mustard, anchovies, and catsup addresses the use of copper and verdigris in colouring pickles, the adulteration of vinegar with sulphuric and other acids, and the contamination of olive oil with poppy seed oil and lead.
The section on butter, cheese, milk, cream, and potatoes addresses the watering of milk, the use of leaden pans to increase cream yield, the adulteration of cream with flour and starch, and the soaking of potatoes to increase weight. The section on confectionary, pastry, and perfumery exposes the use of copper and red lead in colouring sweetmeats, the substitution of poisonous flavourings, and the dangers of cosmetics containing mercury, lead, or bismuth.
The section on medicines is extensive, cataloguing the adulteration of common drugs and condemning quack medicines and medical charlatans. The section on coals addresses frauds in the coal trade, including the use of “nicely pinched sacks,” the practice of “Macadamizing” coals, and the wetting of coal to increase weight. The final section addresses painters’ colours or pigments, hats, broad cloth, kerseymeres, linens, laces, cambrics, silks, jewellery, stationery, and other goods, exposing the sophistication of muslins, stockings, woollen cloth, leather, cutlery, jewellery, silver plate, paper, and stereotype metal.
The book concludes with an address to “Friend Bull,” in which the author hopes he will admit the allegations of fraud are established, proving the title “Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle.” The remedies offered are hermetically closing jaws, or petitioning the “gracious Sovereign” and Parliament’s “omnipotency” to protect Bull and his “little ones” from slow poisoning. The author signs as fellow sufferer and “enemy of fraud and villany.” A postscript addresses false weights and measures, and appendix notes provide additional observations on gin, fish, tea, and other matters.
Detailed Section-by-Section Summary
Publisher’s Advertisements and the Front Matter of a Cautionary Work
The segment opens with a collection of publisher’s advertisements from Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper of Paternoster Row, London, printed by Marchant, Ingram-Court. These pages advertise a series of practical manuals, beginning with The Gentleman’s Pocket Farrier by John Bell, priced at one shilling, and a catalogue of dog breeds ranging from the Shepherd’s Dog and Newfoundland to the Dalmatian, Pugs, and the Bloodhound’s Head, alongside portraits of five Stag Hounds of the Hatfield Hunt. Further listings include Sporting Anecdotes by Pierce Egan, The Sportsman’s Progress, The Angler by T. P. Lathy, Songs of the Chase, and Kunopædia by the late W. Doeson of Eden-Hall, Cumberland. Agricultural works follow, such as Practical Observations on the British Grasses by William Curtis, A Practical Treatise on the Breeding Cow by Edward Skellett, praised by the Farmers’ Journal, and a Complete Farm-House Library offered at four guineas. The list continues with A Complete System of Practical Agriculture by R. W. Dickson, The Farmer’s Companion, The Code of Agriculture by Sir John Sinclair, and A Practical Treatise on Breeding, Rearing, and Fattening All Kinds of Domestic Poultry by Bonington Moubray. The Orchardist by the late T. S. D. Bucknall, M.P., which won the Prize Medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, closes the catalogue.
The title page of the main work announces Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning Unmasked; or, Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle, by “An Enemy to Fraud and Villany.” The book promises to expose the adulteration of wines, spirits, beer, bread, flour, tea, sugar, spices, cheesemongery, pastry, confectionary, and medicines, offering tests for their detection, alongside an exposé of medical quackery and the frauds of pawnbrokers and madhouse-keepers. A quote from the Literary Gazette warns that unprincipled dealers in drugs—peruvian bark, rhubarb, ipecacuanha, magnesia, calomel, castor-oil, and spirits of hartshorn—defeat the physician’s remedy.
In the Author’s Address to the Reader, the writer expects his book to be abhorred by wicked dealers and anticipates their rancour, yet he asserts he has “discharged a public duty.” He observes that attempts to meliorate mankind are coldly received, comparing himself humbly to Socrates, who died a victim to Heathen Mythology for exposing the priesthood and Sophists; to Galileo, who renounced a truth to avoid a similar fate; and to the Divine Founder of the Faith, who was stigmatized by accusers. His consolation lies in having brought “deeds of darkness to light.” A poem in praise of the free press of England follows.
A memorandum repeats a note from page 11, on the authority of The Oracle of Health and Long Life, that sudden deaths in the metropolis are assignable to diabolical adulterations of food and spirits, citing numerous instances of sudden deaths of healthy persons in newspapers, including two in the Herald. The introduction quotes the Literary Gazette reviewing Mr. Accum’s work on Culinary Poisons, which states that we are condemned to swallow swindling or poison in almost everything we eat or drink, explaining the prevalence of disorders and the briefness of existence. The review describes Mr. Accum’s account of Thames water, polluted by one hundred thousand cloacinae, hospitals, slaughter houses, and manufactories, and claims bread is a “crutch to help us onward to the grave.” The author argues that government should legislate against adulteration, citing Mr. Accum’s point that “the eager and insatiable thirst for gain is proof against prohibitions.” He argues that transportation ought to be the mildest punishment, quoting Mr. Accum’s reflection that a highway robber is sentenced to death, while one who distributes slow poison to a community escapes with a trifling fine, as large profits enable culprits to absorb the trivial losses of detection.
The Empire of Death and the Elaboratories of Disease
The introduction opens with the adage “Plures crapula quam gladius,” paraphrased as “Cookery depopulates like a pestilence,” a claim said to be no exaggeration to those versed in disease. Yet this destruction is deemed unequal to that caused by the adulteration of the necessaries of life, which has given a greater empire to death than famine, sword, cookery, and gastrophilism combined, causing tens of thousands of deaths yearly in the metropolis alone. It is stated that it would be difficult to mention a single unadulterated food article. These spurious mixtures are made with such skill that they baffle experienced judges; processes are distributed among distinct operators in separate establishments to ensure secrecy, with proportioning and composition assigned to distinct persons, making the traffic defy tracing. The frequency of the act has made offenders’ consciences callous; a man who would shudder at giving arsenic to one individual sleeps soundly while administering a slower poison to thousands daily—such a man is the baker, miller, wine-merchant, brewer, publican, druggist, tea-dealer, and every adulterating dealer, their consciences seared by self-interest and craving for unrighteous gain.
Regarding gin-shops and spirit-dealers’ workshops, termed “elaboratories of disease and of premature death,” the passage quotes the New Monthly Magazine for February 1828, which denounces these “filthy nuisances” as sanctioned and encouraged by the legislature, serving only to produce evils of the most lamentable nature. Citing The Manual for Invalids, the passage argues that Public Health is virtually neglected, and that Public Health and Public Morals should be the greatest solicitude of government, instead of extracting profit from deception. Taxing alcoholic liquors to prohibition would reduce felony, moral degradation, and the need for police, judges, and executioners, but the revenue enriches the nation’s coffers; the sacra auri fames—the accursed hunger for gold—makes that appear relatively right which is absolutely wrong.
The immoderate use of ardent spirits is destructive to the body and acts as an incentive to vice: the robber and murderer are wound up at the gin-shop; the seducer finds an easy prey through seductive liquor; the brothel is more indebted to this source than to all lures of seduction. A reflecting writer opines that man’s life would generally extend to a hundred years were it not for excesses and adulteration of food. Observing early disfigurement, swollen or shrunk bodies, bloated faces, and the prevalence of doctors’ carriages, the author assigns this to improper diet and vile adulterations. Quoting the Oracle of Health and Long Life, the passage notes that sudden deaths in the metropolis are assignable to unprincipled adulterations of food, spirits, and malt liquors, which operate slowly, silently, and imperceptibly. The author states he composed the following pages to promote inquiry into these nefarious transactions.
The Tricks of Wine and Spirit Dealers
The author divides the work into two sections: first, the Adulteration of Wines and Spirits and the Tricks of Dealers; second, the Tests for ascertaining Good and Bad Qualities. The frauds of wine and spirit brewers exceed those of all other adulterating trades. The art of manufacturing spurious wines is a regular trade, so perfected as to render the irony of the Tatler no longer figurative—operators could convert northern hedges into a vineyard, squeeze Bourdeaux out of the sloe, and Champagne from the apple. The passage quotes artless lines from an honest country lad expressing abhorrence of his relative, a London wine-merchant, who uses sloe-juice and rat’s bane. The author quotes Shakespeare: “Oh! that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!” and states that “in the midst of life we are in death.”
Factitious wines are “doctored” or “cooked”: bitter almonds or cherry-laurel leaves give a nutty flavour; sweet briar, orris-root, clary, cherry-laurel-water, and elder-flowers form the bouquet; alum renders young red wines bright; pressed elder-berries and bilberries give a deep purple colour; oak saw-dust, sloes, and husks of filberts give astringency; a tincture of raisin seeds flavours port. “Sugar of lead” is directed for fining cloudy white wines. Wholesale adulterators obtain a manuscript from the brewers’ and spirit-dealers’ druggist on payment of a fee, or are initiated by oral instruction.
Factitious port wine is made by blending Benecarlo or black strap, Red Cape, Mountain, sal tartar to cause crusting, gum dragon for fullness, colouring matter from German bilberries, brandy or rum cowe—the rinsings of casks—and spoiled cider. Sometimes red saunders wood or elder-berry or sloe juice is used. A chemical analysis of cheap port from the Mechanics’ Magazine lists spirits of wine, cider, sugar, alum, tartaric acid, and a strong decoction of logwood. “Amber-coloured Sherry” is made of coarse highly-brandied brown Sherry, Cape wine, brandy cowe, extract of almond-cake or gum benzoin, cherry-laurel-water, lamb’s blood, and oyster-shells.
Champagne, Claret, and the Frauds of the Bottle
The author invokes Milton on the many ways leading to death’s “grim cave.” Addressing “gulled Jacky Bulls” who believe they drink “Genuine Sparkling Champagne,” he reveals they actually consume plain English gooseberry wine, or worse, “worthless Champagne wine of very dangerous and deleterious quality.” Effervescence is artificially produced by corking solid sugar in the bottle, retaining disengaged carbonic acid under pressure. Litharge of lead, “in its worst form,” is often used to correct and brighten wines that have turned vapid, foul, or ropy, or to prevent ascescent quality. The least pernicious method adds “third quality” wines from indifferent vineyards to spoiled Champagnes, re-fermenting with “strong chemical agente,” then vending as “prime still Champagne.”
The author quotes Dr. Reece’s Monthly Gazette of Health from 1829: a company of Frenchmen contracted with Herefordshire farmers for fresh pear juice, sent to London before fermentation, from which they made “an excellent brisk wine resembling the finest sparkling Champagne.” The speculation proved so productive that they resolved to extend their manufactory. The author asserts he can “perfectly assent” from knowledge of the concern, except that this Anglo-French manufacture cannot represent first-quality Champagne. A correspondent to the Monthly Gazette describes a friend purchasing “super-excellent” claret at public auction at fifty shillings per dozen; his butler discovered it was the same wine he had exchanged with a wine merchant at twenty shillings per dozen—“pricked” wine. The auctioneer refused the Baronet’s complaint, having tasted it previously.
Six bottle sizes exist: full quart, thirteens, fourteens, small fourteens, fifteens, and sixteens. The last two sizes are sold to gin-shops and cheap wine venders. The legal wine quart contains thirty-two ounces, but many imposed bottles hold only twenty-four to twenty-six ounces. Detection requires Lyne’s graduated glass measure, or weighing the contents against the legal quart weight of thirty-two ounces or two hundred and fifty-six drachms.
British Brandy, Rum, Gin, and the Perfection of Adulteration
“Curious old soft flavoured Cogniac, ten years old” is compounded of Spanish or Bourdeaux brandy, neutral flavoured rum, rectified spirits, British brandy, British brandy bitters, cherry-laurel-water, extract of almond cake, extract of capsicums or grains of paradise, and burnt sugar. The “medicinal” compound British brandy—advertised to “entirely supersede the use of Cogniac brandy”—contains oil of vitriol, vinegar, nitrum dulce, tincture of raisin stones, tinctura japonica, cherry-laurel-water, capsicums or grains of paradise, orris-root, cassia-buds, bitter almond meal, and colouring matter. The author quotes The Wine and Spirit Adulterators Unmasked: gin’s ingredients are put into the still with previously rectified spirit; British brandy is compounded without distillation, “like a quack doctor’s nostrum,” with only the rectification of rum or malt whiskey to remove essential oils.
“Fine old Jamaica rums” are manufactured from low-priced Leeward-island rum, ale, porter, or shrub, with orris-root, cherry-laurel-water, grains of paradise or capsicums. Ripe oak-cask taste is imparted via spirituous tincture of raisin-stones and oak saw-dust. Cherry-laurel-leaf water gives Noyeau flavour. Sugar of lead often appears in retailers’ rums.
Gin represents the “perfection of adulteration”
The Poisonous Ingredients of Beer
The author turns directly to “friend John” and “friend Bull,” his personifications of the English public, to defend his alarming claims against the charge that they are mere “bug-a-boo” talk. He offers as proof the Excise prosecutions listed in the Minutes of the Committee of the House of Commons, which examined beer price and quality in 1819. Nine categories of adulterating ingredients are enumerated, each with its own sinister purpose. First is Cocculus Indicus, vulgarly called the “occulus Indian berry,” a powerfully narcotic, intoxicating, and deleterious drug that causes excruciating headaches and sickness when beer is over-dosed. Mr. Accum reports its price rose from two shillings to one shilling per pound in ten years, indicating its increased use. Its poisonous principle, called “picrotoxin” (from the Greek picros, bitter, and toxon, poison), is easily extracted, and in India the berries are used to intoxicate fish for easy catching. Second is Black Extract, known in slang as “Hard Multum,” which is either an extract of the poisonous Indian berry or a composition of opium and other ingredients. Third are Nux Vomica and St. Ignatius’s Bean, both poisonous; ten or twelve grains of nux vomica can kill a dog. Though expunged from the Pharmacopeias, it is imported in large quantities, with tons ground yearly in the metropolis’s drug-mills. The St. Ignatius’s bean is called by its sanctified name to appease consciences. Fourth are Opium, Tobacco, Extract of Poppies, Henbane, Bohemian Rosemary, and Coriander seed, all highly dangerous when improperly used; less than one pound of coriander seed equals one bushel of malt in stupefactive quality. Fifth is Essentia Bina, or Double Essence, which is sugar boiled to a black colour and empyreumatic flavour; the more respectable trade now uses “patent malt,” malt roasted in iron cylinders until coal-black, which is not prohibited by the Excise. Sixth is Heading Stuff, green copperas (vulgarly “Salt of Steel”), a poisonous ingredient giving beer a frothing head, sometimes mixed with alum; one adulterator had 310 pounds of copperas and 560 pounds of hard multum found and condemned. The remaining categories include Capsicum, grains of paradise, carraway seeds, treacle, and liquorice root; Wormwood, aloes, quassia, and bitter oranges; and Lime, marble dust, powdered oyster shells, harts-horn shavings, jalap, and spirit of maranta.
These ingredients serve five effects: factitious strength and intoxicating quality; increased bitterness to save hops; stimulating aromatic flavour; a fine mantling head and nut-brown colour for porter; and preventing or destroying acidity. The author quotes Mr. Donovan (Domestic Economy, p. 201), who finds it “absolutely frightful” to contemplate the list of poisons used to “doctor” malt liquors: opium, henbane, cocculus indicus, and Bohemian rosemary supplied alcohol’s place; aloes, quassia, gentian, sweet scented flag, wormwood, horehound, and bitter oranges fulfilled hops’ duties; liquorice, treacle, and mucilage of flax seed stood for malt sugar; capsicum, ginger, cinnamon, or cassia-buds gave pungency; burnt flour, sugar, or treacle gave porter’s peculiar taste; fish preparations with oil of vitriol procured transparency; and potash, lime, salt, and other substances defrauded the customer. The author notes that Donovan wrote in the past tense, as if adulterations no longer occurred. The author of “The Art of Brewing” (in the Library of Useful Knowledge) gives a fuller list of poisonous articles, stating such adulterations are “still used extensively” by those who “sport with the lives of their fellow creatures for the sake of gain,” with Excise seizures and convictions as proof. The author expresses satisfaction that the statement about gypsum in Burton Ale has been disproved in the recent Court of King’s Bench application by the Burton Ale Brewers, who assert their liquor’s flavour comes from water running over a gypsum rock.
In 1807, London papers asserted porter contained deleterious drugs. The London porter brewers, indignant at the “unjust and causeless” accusation, met and agreed to prosecute the journalists. They made affidavits and moved the Court of King’s Bench for criminal informations against three-fourths of the daily press. Their counsel made long speeches about “guilt and unfounded and malicious libels.” The late Lord Ellenborough declared their affidavits insufficient: the “swearing-brewers” had only denied introducing deleterious ingredients in brewing, whereas they should have denied using them after the beer was brewed. Since the pillory might have awaited them had they made this “hard” assertion, they dropped all proceedings. The author asks: from whom did publicans learn beer-sophistication if not from their “betters,” the “beer-mongers”? One of the “craft” (Child, on Brewing, p. 18) says porter cannot be made of the necessary flavour, taste, and colour from wholesome malt and hops alone, nor would those ingredients furnish sufficient profit. The author exclaims “O trickery! O m” before breaking off.
The Fabrication of Tea
The author turns to tea adulteration, describing how leaves are gathered from hedges around the metropolis by hired agents who earn one penny to twopence per pound. One collector claimed earnings of two to three pounds weekly, describing his work as allowing him to “play oft at times a bit of the gentleman.” Another tea-leaf collector reported clear gains of six to seven pounds per week for only mornings’ work, though the author expresses skepticism about these claims. The process of fabricating black tea is described: sloe leaves are boiled, pressed to remove water, baked on a flat iron plate, dried, then rubbed between hands to create the curl of genuine tea. Colour is produced using Dutch pink and a small quantity of logwood, yielding “good, wholesome, nutritious black tea” supposedly equal to the monopolists’ specimens from Leadenhall-street. For green tea, the leaves are boiled, pressed, and dried similarly, but on copper plates. Prussian blue or Dutch pink in fine powder is mixed with leaves while heating; verdigris completes the operation. Leaves are sifted to separate thorns and stalks, and if insufficient green bloom results, more verdigris and Dutch pink or Prussian blue are added. This occurs even in dark town cellars. Mr. Accum’s book (p. 205) states profits range from £300 to £600 per cent. A House of Commons committee report from 1783 estimated fictitious tea manufactured annually from sloe and ash-tree leaves in England at over four million pounds, when East-India Company genuine tea sales were only six million pounds annually. The author notes Company sales are now about thirty million pounds annually. A verse from the Literary Journal (vol. 1, p. 14) bids farewell to China and Porto, celebrating native sloe for both wine and tea.
The author directs “John” to London newspapers, particularly the Times and Courier, from March to July 1818, for prosecutions of factitious tea manufacturers. One instance cites £840 damages against one culprit. Mr. Accum (p. 203) reports penalties in Scotland and Ireland exceeding fifteen thousand pounds within a few months. The author then provides tests for detecting tea adulteration. For blue vitriol, one and a half grains in a cupful of infusion: genuine green tea appears fine light blue; genuine bohea turns deep blue, next to black; adulterated tea shows various colours (green, black, yellow). For dyed tea (japan earth), eight tests are given: less dyed tea gives deeper colour to same water proportion; colour is reddish brown rather than dark; washed leaves look greener than good bohea; dyed tea is generally larger, so buy small-leaved bohea, checking for crumbling to disguise size; liquor tastes rougher and harsher than genuine; milk rises reddish rather than dark brownish; copperas turns it light blue rather than deep blue inclining to black; and spirits of hartshorn make good tea deep brownish (like saffron tincture) but not bad tea. For green tea counterfeited with green vitriol: gall turns infusion deep blackish; pale green infusion inclining to blueish is bad; spirits of hartshorn give slight purple tinge and small sediment rather than deep greenish yellow after six minutes; and for carbonate of copper, shake a teaspoonful with two teaspoonsful liquid ammonia diluted with half water; fine blue indicates copper. Mr. Accum (pp. 219–221) gives other methods. The general leaf test: genuine tea leaf is narrow relative to length, deeply notched or serrated, acutely pointed; sloe leaf is slightly jagged, obtusely pointed. Genuine leaf is lively pale green, smooth, glossy, delicate; adulterated is dark olive green, coarser, uneven. White thorn leaves resemble genuine tea less than sloe leaves; other sham teas are seldom used. All Chinese tea varieties come from the same plant; shape is the same, size varies. Quality differences depend on climate, soil, culture, age, gathering time, and drying mode. Leaf size differences result largely from gathering season.
Coffee, Pepper, and Spices
For coffee, substitutes include ground dried acorns, horse-chestnuts, horse-beans, pigeon-beans, peas, nuts, barley, rice, wheat, parsnips, and carrots. The best imitation is roasted blue succory or rye with almonds. These are seldom sold solely by themselves except to London coffee-shops or “a plucked pigeon,” but are mixed with genuine berry. The King against Chaloner, a tea and coffee dealer, was convicted of throwing gravel or sand into coffee, penalized £50. The author states coffee sophistication is beyond chemical tests; detection requires catching the dealer on his own premises, given legal exactness. He recommends purchasing raw berries and roasting and grinding them yourself. The author announces a forthcoming work: “The Housekeepers’ Guide to Domestic Comfort, Household Management, and Practical Economy,” priced at “four-penny matter,” described as practical facts rather than “shreds and patches.” Three commercial sorts of coffee exist: Arabian/Mocha, East-Indian, and West-Indian. Mocha/Turkey is generally esteemed best by writers, but the author states Java coffee is considered superior by competent judges due to its larger oil proportion. Among East-Indian, Bourbon is preferred; among West-Indian, French colonies’ growth is most esteemed, particularly Martinique.
The author warns “friend John” that Cayenne pepper is adulterated with red lead to prevent bleaching. He refers “friend Bull” to the test given by “thy expatriated countryman, the much injured Accum,” in his book, 4th edition, p. 247. The author quotes from “The Cook’s Oracle” by the late Dr. Kitchener, which advises making Cayenne from English chillies to ensure genuineness, yielding finer flavour with less heat; a hundred chillies produce two ounces. The author recommends buying the work as valuable to all men, whether those who live to eat or those who eat to live. For cloves, vendors defraud by extracting oil via distillation or pressure, or by forcing cloves to absorb water. Extracted-oil fraud is detected by shrivelled, light, paler cloves without the top knob and little taste. Water-absorption is detected by pressure between fingers and the exudation’s flavour. Good and bad cloves intermingled cause bad ones to absorb oil from good, making detection difficult. Perfect cloves should be large, plump, heavy, fragrant, hot-aromatic, easily broken, leaving oily moisture and smarting sensation when pressed. Cinnamon is adulterated by mixing cassia bark or the genuine article deprived of essential oil. Good cinnamon is smooth, thin (not thicker than stout writing-paper), pliable, light yellowish inclining to red, fragrant, sweetish. Thick, hard, brownish, hot, pungent, or bitter specimens should be rejected. Cassia is thicker, coarser, breaks short and smooth; cinnamon breaks fibrous and splintery. Cassia forms sweet mucilage and dissolves; cinnamon has bitter taste producing bitter dryness.
Pickles, Vinegar, and Other Adulterations
Pickles are coloured with copper or verdigris, or placed in copper or brazen vessels. Cookery books (except “The Cook’s Oracle”) direct boiling pickles in bell metal or copper pots, or boiling halfpence or verdigris with them. The author questions whether such authors should be indicted. Copper is detected by pouring diluted liquid ammonia over suspected pickle in an enclosed phial; if copper is present, ammonia turns blue. Vinegar is adulterated with sulphuric, muriatic, nitric acid, oil of vitriol, acrid vegetable substances, and metallic impregnations of lead, tin, pewter, iron, copper from stills. Common harmless adulteration is water dilution. Vinegar is made from wine, fruits, malt, sugar, wood; wood vinegar is strongest (eight times), colourless, pungent. English vinegar is from malt, which should be pale brown, transparent, pleasant, pungent, without acrimony. Tests: for oil of vitriol, add acetate of barytes, filtrate precipitate, heat in tobacco-pipe red hot, put into spirit of salt or diluted aqua-fortis; if dissolves, genuine. For metallic adulteration, add ammonia; blackish tint indicates copper.
Medicines and the Art of Huggery
The narrative continues its examination of fraud by recalling the anecdote of Godfrey Ambrose, a druggist who secured a monopoly on his arrow-root not through its quality, but by sending haunches of venison to physicians, who in turn recommended his product above all competitors. The author draws a sharp parallel between this practice and that of barristers who win the favor of attorneys through lavish dinners and gifts of game, concluding that both professions share the same “art of huggery.” This sets the stage for a detailed catalogue of the adulterations practiced upon common medicines and goods. Dr. James’s Fever Powders and Norris’s Fever Drops are noted to come in varying strengths, while arrow-root is often made from wheat or potato starch, with only the genuine grains appearing pearly under magnification. Tansy seeds are sold as worm-seed, sometimes mixed with the genuine article, and Spanish liquorice is faked with Indian or Barbary gum—the very substance used for shoe-blacking—formed into rolls stamped “Sofaz.” Refined liquorice may even contain carpenters’ glue, and lemon acid is counterfeited with tartareous acid. Even soda-water is contaminated with copper and lead from the metals of the apparatus used to make it, and lozenges contain pipe-clay, a fraud easily detected by placing them on a red-hot shovel.
The author notes that little genuine honey exists in London, offering tests for its purity: dissolving it in cold water causes flour to settle, and heating adulterated honey causes it to solidify. Three kinds of honey are described: virgin, which is whitish and syrupy; white, which is almost solid; and common yellow, pressed from the combs. Manna is faked with sugar, honey, and scammony, while spermaceti is adulterated with wax, detectable by its smell and dull color, or with whale-tail oil, which turns yellow in the air. Essential oils are so sophisticated that Mr. Accum declares none are fit for use, with only taste and smell able to detect the fraud. The author quotes Dr. T. Lloyd on the excuses of adulterers, who claim their customers demand bargains or are bad paymasters, thereby justifying the sale of “reduced articles” alongside genuine ones—logic the author calls “excellent.” Specific tests for drugs follow: castor-oil should be light amber with little smell, and the author recounts taking seven ounces without effect until obtaining some from Apothecaries’ Hall, which he recommends. Ipecacuanha is adulterated with emetic tartar, and opium, which should be blackish-brown, fetid, heavy, and grit-free, is vitiated with cow-dung, poppy leaves, mimosa gum, and meal. Rhubarb should be lively-colored, firm, and easily pulverized, but worm-eaten pieces are filled with rhubarb-paste and rolled in powder. Senna leaves are mixed with argol and box leaves.
Charlatans and Quack Medicines
The author then turns his attention to quack medicines, noting that the stamp duty legally sanctions “villainous trash.” He attacks charlatans who prey on wealthy ignoramuses, superstitious old women, and rakes. A footnote references the Monthly Gazette of Health on the “Balsam of Rackasiri” empirics—the “Doctors” C. and J. Jordan, “physicians to the West London Medical Establishment”—and their “Salutary Detersive Drops,” plus their champion “Mr. Counsellor Bluster.” Another footnote details these “Hebrew” Jewish knaves, driven from the balsam trade by “the heroic Miss May,” now selling drops that claim to cure all diseases. The author quotes Dr. Morrison’s Medicine No Mystery on charlatans possessing palaces built from victims’ blood. He criticizes a “prating brazen-faced barrister” who defended such fraud for money, and condemns Marlborough-street magistrates for tacitly sanctioning the Rackasiri fraud against Miss May. He attacks newspapers that published paid puffs as intelligence, and city magistrates who allowed affidavits of “wonderful cures” from perjured agents. He threatens to expose offenders in Deadly Adulteration and Slow Poisoning Unmasked, quoting Burns (“A chiel’s amang you taking notes”), and vows reparation to honorable men but scorn to frauds. Finally, he quotes the “Manual for Invalids” on how impostors attack credulity and purse, and a footnote describes the worm-mountebank in Long Acre with 1,500 clergymen testifying, Barclay’s Antibilious Pills, Ching’s Worm Lozenges, “le Docteur” James Graham’s “Apollo” hall, and the New England quack Cherokee Whitlaw, whose “American Herb Extracts” (cabbage water, treacle, turpentine, Epsom salts) cost 3½d but sold for 8 shillings. Dr. Morrison notes charlatans are more prized than physicians in nineteen of twenty cases, citing old superstitions like urine inspection, star consultation, royal touch, and rubbing executed criminals’ hands.
Pulpit Charlatans and Paternal Government
The passage opens with fierce condemnation of “the contemptible quack Whitlaw” and the “blasphemous, monstrously blasphemous and diabolical effrontery” of conventicle and meeting pulpit-charlatans, described as “vile tools of harpyism and religious knavery.” These preachers allegedly compared Whitlaw’s “selfish and detestable tricks” with the “enlarged and godlike benevolence and charity of the Saviour of mankind,” meriting “severest reprobation and chastisement.” Such imposture is said to be sanctioned by “culpable patronage of royals, nobles, statesmen, M.P.’s, and divines” and swallowed by “the gaping mouths of the ignorant, — of foolish women, and half witted men.” The author argues pulpit charlatanry is “the most disgusting” of the two species of imposture. These “wolves in sheep’s clothing” pervert “the plain practical morality laid down by the Saviour of mankind in the gospel,” inculcate “brain-turning and mind-deranging fanaticism” which they profanely call “soul-searching and sinner-awakening doctrines,” all under “the evident chieftainship of the devil.” The passage demands “legislative interference.” Quoting Dr. Robertson the historian, the text notes that toleration has permitted religious empiricism, folly has countenanced medical quackery, and weak persons entrust lives and health to “enthusiastic cobblers and tailors.” Yet given “the proneness of human nature to delusion,” every “wise and paternal government” must protect the weak from “the devil’s agents,” who become “outrageously Christian” in their professions. The passage describes regular graduates of universities—persons of “high classical and literary attainments” who made diseases and remedies “a study of life”—finding themselves “completely superseded by some inspired pretender — some ignorant quack.” Lord Bacon is quoted from his work on the advancement of learning: “If the same honours and rewards are given to fools, which ought to be awarded to the wise, who will labour to be wise?”
The Patent Medicine Act and John Bull’s Gullibility
A footnote attacks the “impolitic and monstrously inconsistent patent medicine act,” claiming it “legalizes and sanctions and promotes the sale of quack poisons” and has “no doubt annually been the unweeting cause of more murders, than the joint influence of typhus, small-pox, and consumption.” The stamp duty was intended as prevention but exemplifies “short-sighted and vicious legislation” by incompetent persons—”mere ita lex scripta est lawyers” who read only “musty, ill-written, badly digested law-books.” The Times Newspaper has characterized such men as “The Mindless.” The author quotes an unnamed “excellent writer” on how “the auri sacra fames has the power of making that appear relatively right, which is absolutely wrong,” and adds: “Beware of hypocrisy of every description; you may as well believe that the Pope can send you to perdition, as that an advertising charlatan can, by any empirical nostrum, restore you to health.” Despite warnings, “poor John Bull and ‘his hopeful family'” lack the power to beware of hypocrisy, advertising charlatans, and empirical nostrums. Through “proneness to gullibility and the love of the marvellous,” quackery daily increases, with “hundreds of quacks” swarming every quarter of the metropolis, fattening on murders perpetrated with their poisons. Mercenary preachers have even sermonized on “the miraculous virtues and benefits of the poisonous nostrums” of mountebank jugglers. A footnote lists the “whole farrago of quack or patent medicines” as destructive: cordial or vegetable balsams, tinctures, syrups, elixirs, pectoral or antiscorbutic drops, bile or antibilious pills, tonic or digestive wines, balms of gilead, guestonian embro-cations, Leake’s pillula salutaria. Thousands of children under three die yearly in London from soothing syrups, infants’ balms, worm-cakes, anodyne necklaces, Godfrey’s cordial, Daffy’s elixir, Dulby’s carminative, apothecaries’ draughts and powders—causing fits, convulsions, fevers, gripes, palsy, and “confirmed idiotcy.” Gowland’s lotion, kalydors, macassar oils, cosmetiques royales, red and white olympian dews, blooms, and hair dyes have robbed females of charms, produced pains, convulsions, and fatal diseases. “Gout extractors,” “metallic tractors,” “animal magnetism,” and “signatures” are noted as exploded follies. The author declines to waste pages on named impostors but lists them: “ladies’ fever” doctors Lamert, Peede, Davis, Eady, Caton, Courtenay (alias Messrs. Currie and Co.), Fiedeberg (alias Sloane and Co., alias Jones and Co.); “surreptitious knights”—His Carpentership, Sir Gul.
The Quackery of the Drug-Shop and the Medical Profession
The text condemns medical quackery, claiming the poor often rely on wine vaults and druggists, who, having only an apprenticeship behind the counter, endanger lives. A “shrewd boy” might receive an “intuitive call” and feel qualified to practice. The writer knows a general practitioner who gained a “surreptitious reputation” through “puffing friends.” Thousands are killed by the “disgraceful quackery of the drug-shop” and the “iniquitous drug-jobbing of apothecaries,” particularly through careless use of calomel and opium. These men may console themselves with the “miserable subterfuge” that they are removing the population that threatens Mr. Parson Malthus and his disciples. Beyond these “legitimate quacks,” there are “quack physicians” who, by remitting £15 to a Scotch university, legally add the initials M.D. to their names and are entitled to kill the king’s subjects “secundum artem.” These “mystified and jabbering doctors” prescribe draughts by the quart and gallon, and understand the laws of vital existence by “hearsay and inspiration.” The text quotes Dr. Morrison, in Medicine No Mystery, that “Five sixths of the medical profession… know little or nothing of the science of life.” This ignorance arises from the “abominable and disgraceful system of medical education,” where drug prices and dispensing constitute the sole knowledge of practitioners who mistake signs and symptoms for causes. Another cause is the public’s “deplorable deficiency” in medical knowledge; if its principles were part of general education, the public could select honest medical men. The text recommends popular writings like Dr. Kitchener’s Art of Invigorating Life, Sir John Sinclair’s Code of Health and Longevity, and Dr. Reece’s Medical Guide. It regrets books by “rash and inexperienced persons” filled with false instructions, such as sleeping with open windows and swallowing salt, whose title-pages are blazoned with the sanction of a “late eminent medical practitioner.” The author believes this practitioner did not read or comprehend the work. The text also reprobates the public press for giving the book notoriety, as those who haven’t studied medicine shouldn’t give opinions on it. The author believes the book’s author is “well-intentioned though a misguided man” who published to add to his income. The text praises the “masterly abstract of Cornaro’s Treatise” appended to the book, written by another person, and hopes it will be published separately. The author clarifies he does not oppose all medical men, reverencing the “intelligent and skilful physician and surgeon.” While no body of men can produce more noble instances of integrity than the Professors of Physic, this character doesn’t apply diffusedly. Finding a fit person to trust with health is not easy, as people are not fastidious. An anecdote is given of a “deservedly eminent physician” who, called to a patient while drunk, seized a lady’s hand, exclaimed “D—d drunk, by G—d!” (meaning he was unfit), and retreated.
Main Arguments
The central argument of the work is that the adulteration of food, drink, and household goods is widespread, systematic, and deadly. The author claims that it would be difficult to mention a single unadulterated food article, and that these spurious mixtures are made with such skill that they baffle experienced judges. The processes of adulteration are distributed among distinct operators in separate establishments to ensure secrecy, with proportioning and composition assigned to distinct persons, making the traffic defy tracing.
The author argues that adulteration causes tens of thousands of deaths yearly in the metropolis alone, and that sudden deaths of healthy persons reported in newspapers are assignable to diabolical adulterations of food and spirits. He quotes the “Oracle of Health and Long Life” on this point and observes numerous instances of sudden deaths in the Herald. The destruction caused by adulteration is deemed unequal to that caused by famine, sword, cookery, and gastrophilism combined.
A second argument concerns the moral corruption of adulterators. The author contends that the frequency of the act has made offenders’ consciences callous; a man who would shudder at giving arsenic to one individual sleeps soundly while administering a slower poison to thousands daily. Such a man is the baker, miller, wine-merchant, brewer, publican, druggist, tea-dealer, and every adulterating dealer, their consciences seared by self-interest and craving for unrighteous gain.
A third argument concerns the complicity of government in permitting adulteration to continue. The author argues that public health and public morals should be the greatest solicitude of government, instead of extracting profit from deception. He attacks the “government logic” that extensive concerns yielding important revenue need no strict scrutiny of quality, provided excise and customs do not suffer. Quoting Mr. Accum, he argues that “the principles of the constitution afford no sanction to this preference”; a tax dependent on fraud is precarious and will be diminished by the diffusion of knowledge; sound policy requires impartial enforcement, and extending penalties would benefit the revenue.
The author also argues that the legal system is inadequate to address adulteration. He quotes Mr. Accum’s reflection on English law: a highway robber is sentenced to death, while one who distributes slow poison to a community escapes with a trifling fine. Large profits enable culprits to absorb the trivial losses of detection. He suggests that transportation ought to be the mildest punishment for adulterators.
A fourth argument concerns the dangers of alcohol consumption, particularly of adulterated spirits. The author contends that the immoderate use of ardent spirits is destructive to the body and acts as an incentive to vice: the robber and murderer are wound up at the gin-shop; the seducer finds an easy prey through seductive liquor; the brothel is more indebted to this source than to all lures of seduction. He quotes the New Monthly Magazine for February 1828, which denounces gin-shops as “filthy nuisances” sanctioned and encouraged by the legislature.
A fifth argument concerns the inadequacy of medical regulation. The author condemns quack medicines, noting that the stamp duty legally sanctions “villainous trash.” He attacks charlatans who prey on wealthy ignoramuses, superstitious old women, and rakes, and argues that the patent medicine act “legalizes and sanctions and promotes the sale of quack poisons” and has “no doubt annually been the unweeting cause of more murders, than the joint influence of typhus, small-pox, and consumption.”
A sixth argument concerns the need for consumer vigilance and education. The author provides extensive tests for detecting adulteration and recommends that consumers purchase raw ingredients and prepare them at home. He advises buying coffee berries and roasting and grinding them oneself, and recommends popular writings on health such as Dr. Kitchener’s Art of Invigorating Life, Sir John Sinclair’s Code of Health and Longevity, and Dr. Reece’s Medical Guide.
Key Concepts
The work introduces and develops several specific concepts and motifs that recur throughout.
“Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle” is the central metaphor of the work, encapsulating the idea that the very vessels of nourishment and refreshment contain the agents of sickness and mortality. The title itself announces this concept, and the author returns to it in his conclusion, hoping that “Friend Bull” will admit the allegations of fraud are established, proving the title.
“Slow poisoning” is a key concept distinguishing the adulterator’s crime from more direct forms of violence. The author notes that a man who would shudder at giving arsenic to one individual sleeps soundly while administering a slower poison to thousands daily. The concept of slow poisoning encompasses both the gradual accumulation of toxic substances in the body and the imperceptible nature of the harm caused. The author quotes the “Oracle of Health and Long Life” on how adulterations operate slowly, silently, and imperceptibly.
“Factitious” or “spurious” goods are those manufactured to imitate genuine articles. The author describes factitious wines, factitious tea, and factitious isinglass, among others. The art of manufacturing spurious wines is described as a regular trade, so perfected that operators could convert northern hedges into a vineyard. Factitious tea is manufactured from sloe and ash-tree leaves, with profits ranging from £300 to £600 per cent.
“Elaboratories of disease and of premature death” is the author’s term for gin-shops and spirit-dealers’ workshops. The phrase captures the idea that these establishments are not merely places of commerce but active sites of harm production, where deleterious substances are compounded and sold.
“The Genius of Sophistication” is personified as the animating force behind the adulteration trade. The author concludes that “honest Bull is circumvented in all his intents” by this Genius, which pervades every branch of trade from food and drink to textiles, paper, and metal goods.
“Auri sacra fames” (the accursed hunger for gold) is a recurring Latin phrase used to explain the motivation of adulterators and the complicity of government. The author quotes an unnamed “excellent writer” on how this hunger has the power of making that appear relatively right which is absolutely wrong.
“Friend John” and “Friend Bull” are personifications of the English public, addressed directly throughout the work. The author uses these addresses to create a sense of intimacy and shared concern, while also adopting a tone of plain speaking and common sense.
“Heading stuff” is the slang term for green copperas, a poisonous ingredient giving beer a frothing head. The author notes that one adulterator had 310 lbs. of copperas and 560 lbs. of hard multum found and condemned.
“Hard Multum” is slang for black extract, a composition of opium and other ingredients used to adulterate beer.
“Macadamizing” is the author’s term for the practice of smashing coals into many angular points to fill the measure with the least quantity, then watering them to increase weight. The term is borrowed from road-building and applied ironically to the coal trade.
“The art of huggery” is the author’s term for the corrupt practices by which professionals secure patronage through gifts and favours. He compares druggists sending haunches of venison to physicians with barristers winning attorneys’ favour through dinners and game presents.
“Pulpit charlatanry” is the author’s term for religious imposture, which he argues is “the most disgusting” of the two species of imposture (the other being medical quackery). These “wolves in sheep’s clothing” pervert “the plain practical morality laid down by the Saviour of mankind in the gospel” and inculcate “brain-turning and mind-deranging fanaticism.”
“The Mindless” is a term the author quotes from the Times Newspaper to describe the incompetent legislators who enacted the patent medicine act and other short-sighted laws.
Themes
The work develops several deeper recurring meanings that extend beyond its immediate polemical purpose.
The corruption of commerce is a pervasive theme. The author portrays the marketplace as a site of systematic deception, where every article of consumption is subject to sophistication and fraud. The adulterator is not an exceptional criminal but a representative figure: the baker, miller, wine-merchant, brewer, publican, druggist, tea-dealer, and every adulterating dealer. The theme extends to the corruption of professional ethics, as physicians recommend products in exchange for venison, barristers win favour through dinners, and newspapers publish paid puffs as intelligence.
The failure of governance is another central theme. The author argues that government has abdicated its responsibility to protect public health and morals, preferring revenue from taxation over the welfare of citizens. The excise laws are enforced strictly against small frauds while large capitalists escape scrutiny; the patent medicine act legally sanctions quack poisons; and the stamp duty on medicines exemplifies “short-sighted and vicious legislation” by incompetent persons. The author calls for “legislative interference” and for every “wise and paternal government” to protect the weak from “the devil’s agents.”
The gullibility of the public is a theme that runs throughout the work. Despite warnings, “poor John Bull and ‘his hopeful family'” lack the power to beware of hypocrisy, advertising charlatans, and empirical nostrums. Through “proneness to gullibility and the love of the marvellous,” quackery daily increases, with “hundreds of quacks” swarming every quarter of the metropolis. The author quotes Dr. Morrison’s observation that charlatans are more prized than physicians in nineteen of twenty cases, citing old superstitions like urine inspection, star consultation, royal touch, and rubbing executed criminals’ hands.
The dangers of luxury and fashion are explored in the sections on cosmetics, hair treatments, and silver plate. The author addresses “fair readers,” noting that British ladies destroy native charms with art. Most cosmetics are worthless or dangerous, conveying mercury, lead, or bismuth into the system. The best cosmetics are exercise, domestic duties, regular repose, and tranquility of mind. Similarly, silver goods cannot be guaranteed to meet legal standard, serving Pride, Vanity, Luxury, and Fashion among those “set up for Gentry and Stylish people” seeking to “outplate and outdish” neighbours.
The sanctity of the body is an implicit theme underlying the author’s denunciations of adulteration. The body is portrayed as vulnerable to slow poisoning from without and to the destructive effects of alcohol and quack medicines from within. The author quotes Dr. Mason Good’s “Study of Medicine” on spontaneous combustion, describing how the bodies of inveterate drunkards, changed by spirit-drinking into inflammable matter, suddenly take fire and reduce to cinder. This extraordinary image suggests the ultimate consequence of bodily corruption through adulterated substances.
The responsibility of knowledge is a theme that emerges in the author’s provision of tests and his recommendations for consumer vigilance. The author believes that the diffusion of knowledge will diminish the tax dependent on fraud, and that if the principles of medical knowledge were part of general education, the public could select honest medical men. He recommends popular writings on health and provides detailed methods for detecting adulteration, suggesting that informed consumers can protect themselves even in the absence of effective regulation.
The hypocrisy of religion is a theme developed in the sections on pulpit charlatanry. The author condemns preachers who compare quacks’ tricks with the benevolence of the Saviour of mankind, and who sermonize on “the miraculous virtues and benefits of the poisonous nostrums” of mountebank jugglers. Such imposture is sanctioned by “culpable patronage of royals, nobles, statesmen, M.P.’s, and divines” and swallowed by “the gaping mouths of the ignorant, — of foolish women, and half witted men.”
The vulnerability of children is a theme that emerges in the catalogue of quack medicines. The author notes that thousands of children under three die yearly in London from soothing syrups, infants’ balms, worm-cakes, anodyne necklaces, Godfrey’s cordial, Daffy’s elixir, Dulby’s carminative, apothecaries’ draughts and powders—causing fits, convulsions, fevers, gripes, palsy, and “confirmed idiotcy.” He advises parents to instruct children never to buy street food, as painted toys contain red lead, verdigris, and other poisons.
The dignity of honest labour is an implicit theme in the author’s praise of genuine articles and his condemnation of fraud. He reverences the “intelligent and skilful physician and surgeon,” acknowledges that no body of men can produce more noble instances of integrity than the Professors of Physic, and recommends the works of honest practitioners. His anger is directed not at trade itself but at the corruption of trade by those who “sport with the lives of their fellow creatures for the sake of gain.”
The Author’s Conclusions
The author concludes that the allegations of fraud are established, proving the title “Disease and Death in the Pot and the Bottle.” He addresses “Friend Bull” directly, hoping that he will admit the widespread adulteration of food, drink, and household goods has been demonstrated through the evidence presented in the work.
The remedies offered are twofold. The first is hermetically closing jaws, a satirical suggestion that the only way to avoid adulterated goods entirely is to cease consumption altogether. The second is petitioning the “gracious Sovereign” and Parliament’s “omnipotency” to protect Bull and his “little ones” from slow poisoning. The author thus places ultimate responsibility for reform on the government, despite his criticisms of its failures, suggesting that legislative intervention is the only effective remedy for the widespread fraud he has documented.
The author signs as fellow sufferer and “enemy of fraud and villany,” maintaining the pseudonymous persona he adopted at the outset. He takes consolation in having brought “deeds of darkness to light,” and his final words affirm his commitment to exposing the nefarious transactions of adulterators.
In his postscript, the author addresses false weights and measures, a topic he omitted from the main body of the work. He describes tricks including clapping weight under the scale and the misconstruction of commercial balances with the substance-arm longer than the counterpoise-arm, giving greater leverage. This addition suggests that the author’s catalogue of frauds is not exhaustive but representative, and that the Genius of Sophistication pervades every aspect of commercial life.
The appendix notes provide additional observations on specific topics. The author affirms that gin is “a liquid fire” per Jonas Hanway, who urged that it be sold only in quart bottles sealed with the king’s seal, with high duty, mixed with a strong emetic.
