ABSTRACT
Food adulteration in the 18505 In spite of the startling disclosures of the extent and seriousness of adulteration which had been made earlier in the century by Accum, Mitchell, Normandy, and other reliable observers, neither Parliament nor the nation was yet convinced that the problem was sufficient to warrant intervention by the state. Before 1850 it was still possible to have legitimate doubts - to believe that adulteration was not universal, but restricted to certain towns or, indeed, to certain parts of towns; that adulterations were not harmful, but, on the contrary, constituted improvements which lowered the cost of expensive foods to the poor; that most if not all sophistications were made in response to public taste and at the inconvenience of food manufacturers. The year 1850 marks a decisive turningpoint in public attitudes about such matters. After this only the deluded, the perverse, and the wicked could continue to defend adulteration or see it as anything except a major social, economic, and public health problem.
