HistoryBeforeAndAfter

Hello and welcome back to SAR! Think of the last time you took a drug; maybe it was Ibuprofen or Tylenol or perhaps it was a prescription drug. My question for you is: how do you know that the chemical inside that pill or capsule is what the label says it is? Even more than that, how are you sure that the ingredients included on a food label are actually those ingredients? Well the fact that we can trust those labels is due to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the first law in a series of consumer protection laws. Back in the day, consumers had many different products to choose from to cure their ailments but there was no regulation for those tinctures to be labeled with what was in them. Think of how scary that is: you’d have no clue if the medicine you were taking actually had the ingredient that it said it did. Likewise at this time foods may have contaminants like spoiled meat ground in sausages or completely wrong meats like horse instead of beef. Today there are heavy penalties for individuals who misrepresent what’s in their products, a term called adulteration, and we have the PFDA to thank for that. Also, special thanks to u/Oxcidoius for his help in today's post! So today let’s explore one law that keeps manufacturers honest.

It's hard to imagine a world in which the ingredients are not listed on the package but up until 1906 that was the standard in the United States. Its important to understand why this was the norm though: up until the 1890s most food was grown within a few miles of where you are located and was pretty much the same from farm to table. Scientific advancements in agriculture like the steam tractor of the 1870s allowed for one farmer to cover the acreage of 10 the decade prior and the invention of William Deering’s horse-drawn combine allowed for mechanization to be brought directly to the fields. The result was that in 1840, 40 hours of labor would result in just under ½ acre of corn or wheat (that’s about 75% the size of a football field). In 1890 the same 40 hours of labor could cover 5 acres of corn or wheat as farmers used new tools like the gang plow, seeders, harrows, binders, threshers, and steam wagons. So why was food being adulterated then? If it was so easy to farm (as well raise livestock) why was there a need to cut corners? Well… in my mind there are primarily three factors:

• Firstly, buying new toys wasn’t cheap. Most of the time a single farmer couldn’t afford the very expensive and highly specialized tractors that were being sold but starting in 1880 banks increasingly started giving loans to farmers to boost their production. So while the farmer could increase their output they were also increasing their monthly expenses which could be a pretty penny. Secondly the 1800s started to see the first conglomerate businesses rise out of the dust of Reconstruction America. Following the Civil War a few businesses profited off of supplying the war effort or the Reconstruction needs and were able to build huge businesses which were rolled in structures called Trusts. These trusts were essentially large mega-corporations that were so powerful they could undercut prices in local areas to bankrupt small businesses. This meant that costs had to be kept low and profits high which led to practices to entice consumers to their product.

• One of the first products to be adulterated was milk which you would think would be hard to do, afterall milk doesn’t have a particularly strong flavor. Increasingly in the 1890s to the 1900s companies started to add other cheaper substances to make milk more appealing than their competitors. This included other foods like flour or starch to increase its density to make it test closer to whole milk than skim or adding carrots or corn to increase the sweetness of the milk. Wouldn’t carrots dye the milk? Why yes! Which is why bleachers like borax (scrubbing powder) or formaldehyde were added to keep it fresh longer. Oh and cow and sheep brains was used to keep the milk frothy. :( Your chicken? Was probably fatty pork being passed off. Your sausages? The swept up meat scraps off the factory floor which would include rat feces and more borax to stop it from rotting. Green peas? Copper sulfate was added to keep them green. Strawberry jam? Most likely leftover apples, glucose, carcinogenic red dyes, and salicylic acid for freshness (which is aspirin). Oh and the honey would have a dead bee in it to prove that it was in fact pure (except its all corn syrup). Eggs? Already rotting but dunked in formaldehyde to prevent the smell. Tea? Common shrubs found around the factory mixed with brick, wood, and lead to increase bulk. Coffee? Actually does contain coffee but also acorns, peas, and charcoal to keep it brown. Are you hungry yet?

• The third factor that facilitated these issues was the trust the public had in the companies to take care of them. Perhaps naively, consumers just believed that the companies that advertised pure and healthy foods actually gave them what was advertised. Afterall, Mr. Tuggers from the grocers surely wouldn’t sell anything bad, you’ve known him your whole life! This desire to believe in the good nature of business allowed for businesses to cut corners and consumers would look the other way or just not notice. Sure, if a company was found to adulterate their product the retribution would be pretty swift but there were multiple legal loopholes companies could take to circumvent the lax consumer protection laws. Afterall, there was little legislation at the time that dictated what had to be in the product you sold. If your milk is mostly milk, isn’t it milk? And if my ground beef contains some horse, ain’t it still ground beef? You get the idea.

Well what about drugs? Surely medicinemen who spent years going through the rigorous training to be considered physicians would be able to spot a fake, right? Well…not exactly. Before Louis Pasteur’s discovery of bacteria in 1864 and Robert Koch’s germ theory of disease in 1883, most of medicine was centered on the idea of miasma or that bad air could induce disease. With the idea of bacteria, and the subsequent American Civil War, many doctors were convinced of the principles of germ theory and hygiene. With the war lending many cadavers for medical students to now study on, medical thought shifted to the idea of Vitality. The vitality doctrine centered on the idea that the body knows how to take care of itself and it was foreign organisms that prevented it from working. As such, medicine doctors became increasingly focused on interventionism and how we can administer drugs or perform surgeries that heighten the body’s ability to fight for itself. This perspective led to businessmen propping themselves up with miracle cures that could do everything from fighting diarrhea, to soothing stomachs, to curing cancers.