it gives to ice-cream and its general utility in the cuisine have made it deservedly popular. Gelatine is the product of some of the nitrogenous parts of the animal and should be made only from the edible parts thereof. It is particularly abundant in the tendinous portions of the animal and in the tissues about the head, from which a large part of edible gelatine is made. No portion of the animal which is filthy or unfit for food should ever enter into the composition of the gelatine. If the parts from which the gelatine are made are cured previous to manufacture they should be cured in a perfectly sanitary way, as carefully as any other part of the meat. There can be no objection to the use of gelatine made from these sanitary materials in foods of all kinds.
There is, however, a possibility that some of the gelatines on the market may be made from materials wholly unfit for food. The food law forbids the use of animal substances unfit for food either directly or indirectly. As an illustration of this condition of affairs I may call attention to the fact that a part of the gelatines sold in the United States are made from parts of animals slaughtered in South America. It is not known to the consumer in what conditions these parts are preserved and transported. They may be possibly packed with the hide and sent to Belgium or other countries in a filthy, putrid and abhorrent state and these parts be cut from the hides before they are sent to the tanneries and converted into gelatine and sold as edible gelatine. Such a possibility should not exist, and there is no danger of its existence with high class manufacturers. A part of the horns is also used for such purposes, which being of an inedible portion and unfit for food is not admissible, under the law, as a constituent of edible gelatine. All such materials should be excluded in the manufacture of such an important product. Further than this, it may be stated that the line of demarcation between gelatine and glue is not always as well drawn as it should be, and this is illustrated in the report that the gelatine and glue are manufactured in the same factory, and the same conditions of odor and insanitation which adhere to glue may attach themselves to the gelatine. Such a condition, of course, would be an exceptional case, but its possibility should be excluded. Under the food law only those forms of gelatine first described above can be legally made and sold for use in food.
Adulteration of Gelatine.—The adulterations of gelatine are such as those referred to above in the form of raw materials employed which are insanitary and unfit for food. In addition to this, bleaching agents, namely, sulfurous acid or sulfites and mineral acids, are often employed in the manufacture, portions of which may remain in the finished article. All of these substances must be regarded as adulterants and as insanitary and unsuitable to gelatine, and to that extent unfit for human consumption.
Presence of Tetanus in Commercial Gelatine.—The Public Health and Marine Hospital Service has investigated gelatine to determine whether or
