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thing that that jam did not contain was strawberries. It was like the wooden nutmegs that were once said to have been manufactured in Connecticut, where I live. I doubt the story about wooden nutmegs, but until the pure food law was enacted there were sausages made that had almost no sausage meat in them. And then there was the so-called embalmed beef that was alleged to have been supplied by some of the big packing houses to feed the soldiers in the Spanish War. I don't know whether Theodore Roosevelt, when he led the Rough Riders in Cuba back in 1898, ever ate any of that embalined beef, for our soldiers in that war had very little to eat of any sort. But when he became President one of the measures he got Congress to pass was the pure food law. There was, of course, great opposition from some food producers on the ground of bureaucracy and interference with freedom of trade. But the law was passed and it has really boen almost as valuable to producers and merchants as it has to consumers. It has not only prevented many cases of food poisoning and swindling by sale of inferior products; but it has also greatly increased the sale of all sorts of canned goods and foods in packages. So long as there was doubt of the purity and healthfulness of such foods people hesitated to buy them. Now they are sold in immense quantities, for every package of breakfast food, every can of vegetables and every bottle of pickle on the market is now subject to the superivsion of the Federal and State Governments. All food products are required to be free from adulteration, and the label on the can or package must tell the truth about the contents.

Another big step to protect the American home was taken three or four years ago when Congress passed and President Coolidge signed a law called the Corrosive Poisons Act. This act requires a warning label on various chemicals and cleaning fluids that are used to clean nearly every home. One of these substances is soda lye that is used to clean the kitchen sink. Every now and then a little ohild got hold of the can and swallowed some of its contents. The result was fearful injury, lasting sometimes throughout life, even if the child was not killed immediately. All such substances must now bear a warning label, and many accidents are thus prevented.

But this is not yet enough. There are still many substances that are sold and that are very useful but which carry dangers into our homes. And against these substances, some of which are very poisonous; there are as yet no protective measures and no requirement for a warning on the label. A couple of years ago many cases of illness, and perhaps some deaths occurred in hotels, and some may have occurred also in private homes, where the forks and spoons were cleaned with a silver polish containing the deadly poison potassium cyanide. A few grains of this polish between the prongs of a fork were enough to cause serious illness. There was no warning on the label of that silver polish. It has been withdrawn from sale. But it was an excellent polish, and there is nothing now to prevent another manufacturer from putting out a similar polish containing postassium cyanide under a fancy name.

There is now on the market a powder for cockroaches. It contains sodium fluoride and has killed several people who took it by mistake. It is sold in a package that looks like that of salts. It has no warning on the label.

The largest group of poisonous substances that now go into our homes without any warning of their dangers are various volatile liquids and new chemical substances that are each year invented by chemists, and put on the market and sold to the public, before any test has been made as to whether they are poisonous or not. For such substances there is as yet no requirement that the label shall give warning of danger. One of these substances that is very useful for cleaning purposes is carbon tetrachloride. Now let me say at once that carbon tetrachloride has certainly saved more lives and health than it has destroyed or injured. It is very much safer to remove grease spots with this liquid than it is with gasoline or naphtha, for carbon tetrachloride does not catch fire. It will not burn; but many a woman has been badly or even fatally burned by gasoline. On the other hand, carbon tetrachloride has a vapor that is distinctly poisonous. The substance should be used only in well-aired places so that the user does not inhale the fumes. In Switzerland carbon tetrachloride hus been used as the solvent for a floor wax in a school. It caused serious illness. There is now no law or regulation in America to prevent carbon tetrachloride and similar new substances being used in floor polish. It can cause serious illness in children playing on a floor polished with such substances. There is no requirement now for a warning in the label on the can. It is not sold to the general public as carbon tetrachloride but under a fancy name. The next time you buy a bottle or can of cleaning fluid ask what it really is. In fact, when you buy any chemical for use in your home always find out what the constituents really are.

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I do not want to give you the impression that American manufacturers wish to poison those who buy their products. They do not. They are humane men, and deaths or illness caused by their products react against selling their goods. The harm conies from the fact that when a new substance is invented by chemists and is found to be useful for some purpose, it is manufactured and sold without any investigation of whether its use involves hazards to health and life. Chemists had been looking for a substance that would prevent automobile engines from knocking that is, from premature explosions in the cylinders and loss of power. At last an effective substance was found to be tetraethyl lead; and the manufac turers were about to distribute it all over the country to be added to gasoline at filling stations. Fortunately, scientific men who knew that tetraethyl lead is a powerful poison were able to warn the manufacturers in time. As a result the substance, instead of being distributed in concentrated form, is now mixed with the gasoline at petroleum refineries and distributed as "ethyl gas", which is relatively safe. Warnings are also put on the pumps at filling stations. There have been few or no cases of posioning since these precautions were put into effect; but without these precautions there would almost certainly have been hundreds of cases of poisoning.

Another substance, inethyl chloride, has, however, caused a number of deaths. This liquid or gas is used in some makes of automatic refrigerators. These refrigerators are certainly a great convenience as compared with the old-fashioned ice refrigerators. They are also quite safe if they are made in single units. Methyl chloride in a single unit refrigerator is perhaps safer even than most of the other gases that are used. But, unfortunately and unwisely, multiple systems of refrigerators were allowed to be installed in big apartment houses in some cities. Such an installation involves a big storage tank or cylinder of the refrigerant in the basement connected to many refrigerators in the various apartments. If any one of the refrigerators in any one of the apartments develops a leak the whole of this large amount of gas from the cylinder and from all the other refrigerators in the building escapes into that one apartment. This occurred in some apartment houses in Chicago and caused a number of deaths a year or two ago. Large multiple refrigerator systems are dangerous. Single units are safe.

I could easily tell of other examples of the household hazards that modern scientific conveniences have introduced into our homes. The electric light fixtures in a bathroom should always be so arranged that no one can make contact with a live wire with one hand when his other hand is in a wash basin or his feet in a bath tub. Cases of death by electrocution by the house current have occurred under such conditions.

There are also the dangers from the city gas that we cook with nowadays. Old and defective rubber tubes leading to gas stoves are liable to break and to allow the gas to escape. Deaths from this cause are common. Water heaters, if badly arranged, may also produce carbon monoxide. Every gas heater should be connected with a chimney to prevent this danger. Another common danger nowadays is that from carbon monoxide in automobile exhaust gas. Never start the engine of your car, no matter how cold the weather, until you have opened the garage doors.

Senator COPELAND. We are very much obliged to you, Professor Henderson. I will now ask Prof. Ällen Freeman, professor of health at Johns Hopkins University, to speak to us.

STATEMENT Of prof. allen FREEMAN, Professor of PUBLIC HEALTH ADMINISTRATION, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE.

Professor FREEMAN. Mr. Chairman, like Dr. Henderson, I thank you very much for the privilege of speaking out of order. I shall try to be as brief as possible.

I have only a few words to add to what Dr. Henderson has said: First of all to express my entire agreement with the purpose and scope of this revision of the pure food bill.

It was my privilege over a period of some 14 years to serve as a health officer in one jurisdiction or another and to sit, so to speak, at the receiving end of some of these food-poisoning episodes.

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I happened to be the responsible officer in charge of the first botulanous epidemic. It was my very unfortunate function to have to preside at the funeral of the ripe olive industry. There was no cooperation whatever from the manufacturers of the particular brand of olives which caused this epidemic. There were cases of this particular lot in half a dozen Ohio cities, and no one knew in how many other parts of the United States. There was only one thing to do, that was to advise the people of Ohio not to eat Curtis ripe olives. I was subsequently visited by a lawyer representing the manufacturing concern that did me the compliment of threatening to sue me for half a million dollars. There was no suit, of course. That destroyed that industry. This particular firm did not belong to the trade association, and this firm had refused to conform to the simplest, requiremonts necessary to insure the safety of their customers. They went down and the great industry was for a time completely destroyed. No one can serve as health officer without being impressed with the very great necessity for the most rigid control of food products.

Senator COPELAND. Will you pardon me if I interrupt you? Would it not be wise for the comfort of people who eat ripe olives to say that the conditions of sterilization and preparation have now been perfected to the point that the danger which arose in connection with the epidemic mentioned is not likely to recur?

Professor FREEMAN. Quite. I am sorry I did not make that plain, Senator. The Organized Trade Association took hold of the problem and within a few years ripe olives were perfectly safe to eat and have been ever since. I cite that only as an example of the dangers which result from ignorance, whether intentional or otherwise, of the principles of protection.

Now, I am sure anyone present here who had seen the victims of that epidemic would have felt that no precaution, however burdensome it might be on that industry, would be too great to prevent a repetition of that occurrence. It was a perfectly dreadful thing.

I think we have to recognize in looking at this bill that the purpose of most processing and what you may speak of as elaboration or sophistication of food is to increase sale, either through improving the appearance of the product, through dividing it into attractive units so that a higher price for the same amount can be obtained; or, as is frequently the case, through reducing the cost of production by providing an inferior product.

When we confront situations like these it seems to me beyond question that the consumer has a right ahead of the profit. I have no objection to profits in the food industry. We could not have food without that, but we must consider the rights of the consumer first lust, and all time.

Then, with reference to this matter of lead tolerance about which there was some discussion this morning; at the present time it is possible for the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the amount of lead on apples or on peaches so that if you confined yourself to apples or peaches you would not get an excessive amount of lead.

The same thing is true of fresh vegetables, such as cauliflower and cabbage. If I happen to be fond of apples, cauliflower, and other things on which this arsenic and load is used, the fact that each one of them is individually safe does not mean that the combination is

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safe. In very truth there must be an allocation of the amount of arsenic which can be used in the different products we have to eat. Senator COPELAND. Professor Freeman, have not those tolerances with reference to arsenic and lead been so well established that we might now determine by law what should be the limit of use?

Professor FREEMAN. I hardly think you could determine it permanently by law, Senator, because there are constantly new products coming into the market on which they have been used, and the tolerance permitted on any product is dependent on how many other products have to share in this lead.

So far as cosmetics are concerned, I think every one who has seen the results of some of the cosmetics now on the market will agree that some form of regulation is necessary; and, while we do not want to interfere with anybody paying $3 for a small amount of perfumed lard if they wish to, we do not want them to be sold anything that is going to take the hair off their head or ruin their vision or produce horrible scars.

So far as patent medicinos are concerned, I feel very strongly on the subject because all must recognize that most of them have no value whatever; that what gives them value is not the formula, not the content of the drug which they contain, but the advertising to which they are attached.

I had the misfortune once to make an indiscreet remark about a now cure for tuberculosis. The remark was repeated in the newspapers and for weeks thereafter my mail was flooded with the most pathetic letters from consumptives all over the country. There are thousands of these people suffering from incurable diseases, and we must protect them from the kind of exploitation to which they have been subjected in the past and to which they are now being subjected. Based on my knowledge as a health officer, Mr. Chairman, want to go on record as favoring the new features of this bill as necessary to the protection of the public health.

Senator COPELAND. Have the washing methods for apples and pears done very much to give safety?

Professor FREEMAN. We have been having a great deal of trouble in Maryland in keeping the apples which are being shipped out of Maryland to England within the limits of tolerance which aro accepted by the English authorities. It is a very difficult thing to get the arsenic off if too much has been put on.

Senator COPELAND. Even where certain chemicals have been used with the water do you still have some difficulty in cleansing the fruit? Professor FREEMAN. I have not had any particular experience with those methods. I have been familiar only with the general course of events. But I was talking with the doctor who has charge of the matter in Maryland a few days ago, and he was very much discouraged at the outlook.

Senator COPELAND. I thank you very much, Professor. I appreciate your coming. I will call now on Dr. Haven Emerson, representing the American Public Health Association.

STATEMENT OF DR. HAVEN EMERSON, REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION

Dr. EMERSON. Mr. Chairman, I bring for your consideration two resolutions, one from each of the professions chiefly concerned, and

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both in favor of the principles expressed in the bill. The resolution of the American Public Health Association came from its food and drug section which represents those persons who are in official positions as well as in the industry and this is endorsed by the entire public health profession of our country. I leave this with you for the record.

Senator COPELAND. It will be included in the record.

(The resolution referred to is as follows:)

At the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Indianapolis in October of this year, the following resolution was passed:

Whereas the prescut Federal Food and Drugs Act has brought a high measure of protection to the American public through its faithful enforcement by the Food and Drug Administration officers, and

Whereas due to changing methods of manufacture and distribution of food and drugs the act neeeds revision to maintain and increase public protection; therefore be it

Resolved, That the American Public Health Association

1. express its confidence in the purposes and principles of the proposed revision of the Federal Food and Drugs Act now before Congress for action; and

2. solicit the support of all members of the association to secure the enactment into law of the objectives of this revision, and

3. that this expression of the views of the association be made a part of the record of this meeting.

Dr. EMERSON. On Monday, December 4, the New York Academy of Medicine similarly took cognizance of this bill and passed a resolution expressing the considered opinion of the clinicians and the hospital physicians and others of the city of New York. It reads as

follows:

Resolved, That the New York Academy of Medicine, through its public health relations committee, express its whole-hearted approval of the fundamental principles underlying the proposed Federal Food and Drugs Act (8-1944) and register its conviction that the proposed legislation is a forward step toward the protection of the health of the citizens of the United States.

As President of the Public Health Association and a member of the public health committee of the academy, I advise you that we are constantly observing at the medical centers in New York through the departments of Dermatology and Medicine the victims of the injudicious use of self-beautification efforts who come to us with many pathologic conditions: Patients with deformed faces, patients with poisoned bodies, patients suffering at long time distance from the time when they used their medications from chronic poisoning, which they could not themselves suspect from their own symptoms at the time of using the cosmetic. A matter which I think should be emphasized in the discussion of this bill is the chronicity, the long interval between the time of the application of these preparations and the beginning of symptoms which makes it impossible for the individual consumers to protect themselves us they would against some violent irritant applied to the skin. Lead, silver, and arsenic are common types of chronic poisoning by cosmetics.

I should like to offer one or two brief suggestions for the improvement or strengthening of the effect of the bill. One of them is the addition of the word "contemporary "in two places which I will call to your attention. On page 9, line 22, after the words "agreement of" add the word "contemporary", making it read "agreement of contemporary medical opinion."

Having been called as a witness in various cases in the enforcement of the present Food and Drugs Act, I have found the court and other