The Funny Side of Physic Part 79

Water, 930 Solid particles, 70 ---- To parts 1000

b.u.t.ter, 18 Sugar, 8 Caseine, 34 Salt, 10 -- Solid matter, 70

[Ill.u.s.tration: SWILL MILK (MAGNIFIED).]

The reader will perceive by these quotations (from Dr. Samuel R. Percy's report to the Academy of Medicine, New York), that it requires twice as much swill milk to give the same amount of nourishment as of a pure article. Furthermore, the swill milk is diseased, and, when magnified, appears as represented in the ill.u.s.tration. It contains corrupt matter, and pieces of _diseased udder_, with broken-down rotten globules.

The result of feeding children on this pernicious article of diet is to generate scrofula, skin diseases, rickets, diarrhoea, cholera infantum, and consumption, or marasmus--wasting away.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PURE MILK.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WATERED MILK.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT'S IN THE MILK?"]

Some children in cities literally starve to death on this sort of milk.

Starch in milk may be detected by putting a drop of iodine into a gla.s.s of milk, when the starch will give off a blue color; or, by boiling such milk, it will thicken. _Animals' brains_, which are sometimes mixed in milk, may be detected with the microscope. Soda is often put in cans of milk that are to be transported, to keep the milk sweet.

We once saw a milkman _picking a pair of mice out of his big milk can_; but these little accidents, with hairs and dirt from the animals, are not to be mentioned, in view of the above greater facts of "what's in the milk"?

During the late run on the ---- Bank, New York, a gentleman said that a Westchester milkman named Thompson W. Decker had purchased sixteen thousand dollars worth of books at a discount, not because he wanted to speculate, as he was a millionnaire, but to show he had confidence in the inst.i.tution, and wished to enhance its credit. Profitable business!

THE COW WITH ONE TEAT.

A cute old dairyman, who lived on a farm,-- To tell you the place is no good, nor no harm,-- Kept three or four cows--"Fan," "Molly," and "Bess,"

With one not yet mentioned, whose name you can't guess.

Two teams he kept running by night and by day, But where all the milk came from n.o.body could say; His cows were no better than those of his neighbor, Who kept just as many with equal the labor.

And as for paying! he built a great house, And barns, and granaries that would keep out a mouse; He drove fast horses, and was said to live high, But his neighbors looked on, and couldn't tell why.

"_Old Bess kicked the bucket!_ Now let's see," said they, "If he runs his two carts in the same style to-day."

But the 'cute old farmer was not to be beat, For the best to give down was the cow with one teat!

But since old "Bess" died the milk had grown thinner, And the fact _leaked_ out now that the old sinner Had a cow with one teat, and fixed near the rump Was a handle which worked like any good pump!

CHEESE.

"Poison is sometimes generated in curds, and cheese prepared too damp, without sufficient salt."

Hall, of the Recorder, has been presented with some Limburger cheese; and this is how he acknowledges it: "Our friend, Wm. F. Belknap, of Watertown, sends us some _choice_, _fragrant_, Limburger cheese. Although of Dutch _descent_, we 'pa.s.s.' _Our_ 'offence is _not_ rank!' and does not 'smell to Heaven.' That _distinct_ package of Limburger could give the ninety and nine little 'stinks of Cologne' ten points, and 'skunk' 'em--just as e-a-s-y. We generously offered the package to a man who slaughters skunks for their hide and ile; but he said he didn't admire the odor, and guessed he'd worry along without it; and we finally pa.s.sed it on a German, who lives over the hill five miles to leeward of the village. We suppose there _are_ some people who eat Limburger. It's just as a man is brought up.

'None for Joseph,' thank you."

TEA AND COFFEE.

Tea was introduced into England in the year 1666, and sold for sixty s.h.i.+llings per pound. It was first boiled till tender, and sauced up with b.u.t.ter in large dishes, the "broth" being thrown away: An excellent way for using the article!

All imported tea is black, unless colored before leaving China, and is colored by prussiate of potash--a poison so deleterious as to require labelling in drug stores as "POISON." It makes one very nervous,--good tea does not, unless used to excess,--and acts as a slow poison on the system.

By its over-action on the liver, it makes one yellow, and will spoil the fairest complexion. All teas contain tannic acid, which, combining with milk, makes excellent leather of one. Black teas are sometimes colored with gypsum and Prussian blue.

I obtained these facts from a retired tea merchant of Philadelphia. He spent some time in China.

Coffee is adulterated with mahogany sawdust, acorns, peas, beans, roasted carrots, but more commonly with dandelion root and chiccory. I have obtained some samples of these from a large coffee-grinder in this city.

But what is more repulsive still, baked horses' and bullocks' livers are often mixed with cheap coffees, to _give them more body_! Pure coffee is the less injurious. All these substances may be detected, _as they become soft by boiling, which coffee-bean does not_. Coffee browned in silver-lined cylinders retains its flavor more perfectly than in iron.

ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.

This is not a temperance lecture. I have only to tell you of impure liquors. Excepting alcohol I know of no pure liquors. I can find none. I have offered one hundred dollars for an ounce of pure brandy.

_Wines._--The following articles are used to make or adulterate wine: water, sugar, a.r.s.enic, alum, cochineal and other coloring matter, chalk, lime, sulphur, lead, corrosive sublimate, etc.

To detect a.r.s.enic, put some pure lime-water in a gla.s.s, and drop the wine,--say a teaspoonful,--into it. If white clouds arise, expect that it contains a.r.s.enic. A positive test of a.r.s.enic in liquids is the ammonio-nitrate of silver, which precipitates a rich yellow matter, the _a.r.s.eniate of silver_, and this quickly changes to a greenish-brown color.

No elder or deacon should use wine, unless domestic, without having a sample of it a.n.a.lyzed by a disinterested chemist. The thought to me is perfectly shocking, that the villanous concoctions sold by even honest and Christian druggists, and used for communion purposes, to represent the blood of Christ, should be composed of _alum, a.r.s.enic, and bugs_!

(cochineal). Of bread I say the same. A deacon's wife, not a hundred miles from Lowell, buys baker's bread, _sour and yellow_, for communion purposes. A lady showed me a sample of it, very unlike what my old grandmother, a deaconess, used to make for that purpose. It requires too much s.p.a.ce to give tests of the various poisons in wines. I have no confidence in _any_ foreign wines.

Alcohol has been distilled from the brain and other parts of the dead body of drunkards.

A WINE BATH.

An American traveller in the streets of Paris, seeing the words, "Wine Baths given here," exclaimed,--

"Well, these French are a luxurious people;" when, with true Yankee curiosity and the feeling that he could afford whatever any one else did, he walked in and demanded a "wine bath."

Feeling wonderfully refreshed after it, and having to pay but five francs, he asked, in some astonishment, how a wine bath could be afforded so cheaply. His sable attendant, who had been a slave in Virginia, and enjoyed a sly bit of humor, replied,--

"O, ma.s.sa, we just pa.s.s it along into anudder room, where we gib bath at four francs."

"Then you throw it away, I suppose."

"No, ma.s.sa; den we send it lower down, and charge three francs a bath.

Dar's plenty of people who ain't so berry particular, who will bathe in it after this at two francs a head. Den, ma.s.sa, we let the common people have it at a franc apiece."

"Then, of course, you throw it away," exclaimed the traveller, who thought this was going even beyond Yankee profit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CHAMPAGNE BATH.]

"No, indeed, ma.s.sa," was the indignant reply, accompanied by a profound bow; "no, indeed, ma.s.sa; we are not so stravagant as dat comes to; we just bottle it up den, and send it to 'Meriky for champagne."

A CHEMIST'S TESTIMONY.

Dr. Hiram c.o.x, an eminent chemist of Ohio, states that during two years he has made five hundred and seventy-nine inspections of various kinds of liquors, and has found nine tenths of them imitations, and a quarter portion of them poisonous concoctions. Of brandy, he found one gallon in one hundred pure; of wine, not a gallon in a thousand, but generally made of whiskey as a basis, with poisonous articles for condiments. Not a drop of Madeira wine had been made in that island since 1851. Some of the whiskey he inspected contained sulphuric acid enough in a quart to eat a hole through a man's stomach.