PREVIOUS LEGISLATION

Congress enacted a law conferring plenary power on the Secretary of Agriculture to exclude adulterated and misbranded foreign articles from entry several years ago. Its terms are as follows:

The Secretary of Agriculture, whenever he has reason to believe that such articles are being imported from foreign countries which are dangerous to the health of the people of the United States, or which shall be falsely labeled or branded either as to their contents or as to the place of their manufacture or production, shall make a request upon the Secretary of the Treasury for samples from original packages of such articles for inspection and analysis, and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby authorized to open such original packages and deliver specimens to the Secretary of Agriculture for the purpose mentioned, giving notice to the owner or consignee of such articles, who may be present and have the right to introduce testimony; and the Secretary of the Treasury shall refuse delivery to the consignee of any such goods which the Secretary of Agriculture reports to him have been inspected and analyzed and found to be dangerous to health or falsely labeled or branded, either as to their contents or as to the place of their manufacture or production or which are forbidden entry or to be sold, or are restricted in sale in the countries in which they are made or from which they are exported.

DR. WILEY: I will say that the Germans no longer attempt to send boraxed sausages to this country. They were making them and sending them to this country when they were not permitted in their own country; but our law says that anything that is forbidden in any country can not be sent from that country here, and so we simply excluded those goods because they were excluded in Germany; not on account of any decision respecting their health.

The same way with salicylic acid. You can not import anything into this country from Germany or France that contains salicylic acid because that is forbidden in those countries but you can from England.

MR. TOWNSEND: We do not propose to be as liberal as they are. We forbid their manufacturing and selling it here but allow them to sell it abroad.

MR. MANN: Is the amount of borax in these duck eggs of such a percentage as to be, without question, injurious to health?

DR. WILEY: If consumed as food, absolutely without question; and we are not required, I think, to say that we will follow a man and see whether he tells the truth or not as to what he is going to do with it. I do not think that this firm in this case would have done anything but what they said,. because they are most reputable and honorable men; but suppose some other person had done it?

MR. MANN: If this provision in the Hepburn bill had been in the law, you would have been required to take some action of that sort, I suppose?

DR. WILEY: Yes; and I hope the committee will read the paragraph where I have spoken about that. I think it is a very unfortunate thing that we are required to go into a man's kitchen and supervise his cooking, and I think that when you come to look into that thing you will find it would be the one unconstitutional thing in it, because it is a pure police regulation, which is solely committed to the States.

MR. TOWNSEND: In what bill is that?

DR. WILEY: The Hepburn bill--the clause which says that the thing must be judged when it is fit for consumption. Now, the preparation of a food for consumption is certainly under the supervision of the police powers of the States, and it is not in the unbroken packages which the law specifies as the only goods to which this law shall apply.

MR. MANN: The provision of the Hepburn bill is not quite that, Doctor.

DR. WILEY: But I want to say to you, gentlemen, that I am not frightened about that clause of the bill at all. That is just a little principle of ethics and constitutionality. Not being much of a constitutional lawyer I only suggest it; but I would like to have my distinguished friend here [Mr. Bartlett] look into that point of it particularly.

MR. ESCH: Is saltpeter still used as a preservative anywhere, Doctor?

DR. WILEY: I do not think saltpeter was ever used as a preservative. It was used to preserve color, but not to preserve food.

MR. MANN: Is it injurious?

DR. WILEY: I think saltpeter is a very injurious substance. It acts specifically on the kidneys very injuriously, and Professor Halliburton, whom I quoted this morning, agrees perfectly with that statement.

MR. ESCH: Corned beef is colored with the use of saltpeter, is it not?

DR. WILEY: That is just the same principle again. I would not be afraid to eat a piece of corned beef, because the amount of injury would be immeasurably small. Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that it should not be used in corned beef. I would be sorry to see it left out. But if you put it on the principle of harmlessness, it could not go in. And that reminds me that I did not show you the thing which is most indicative of my argument. I am glad you mentioned that just now. I want that chart that was made this morning. A little graphic representation of an argument sometimes helps a great deal.

The suggestion has been repeatedly made here that because food was injurious we should legislate against it. Now, I have drawn here my argument in a graphic form. This is a graphic chart showing the comparative influence of foods and preservatives. Of course we have to assume the data on which this chart is constructed. You will understand that.

 

We will suppose that a normal dose of a drug in a state of health is nothing. We do not need it at all. Now, imagine that the lethal dose of a drug--that is, the dose that will kill--is 100; and then we go to work and measure at three points--at 75, at 50, and at 25. There are points at which we can measure. We can not measure up toward the right there, because the line almost coincides with the basic line, and the deviation is so slight that no method of measurement that we know of could distinguish them.

Then, if we use a little drug I can measure it here. I can measure it again here [indicating], and I can measure it again here [indicating]. Now from those three points I can construct a curve and calculate the lethal dose, which we will assume to be 100. That much drug would kill; no drug would not hurt at all.

The relative injury of a drug can be calculated mathematically from a curve constructed like that on experimental data, and I could tell you mathematically, by applying the calculus there, just what the hurtful value of that drug would be at an infinitely small distance from zero. You have doubtless, an of you, studied calculus, and you know how you can integrate a vanishing function. I used to know a good deal about calculus myself, and I could by integral calculus tell you the injurious power of a drug at an infinitely small distance from zero--that is, an infinitely small dose.

Now, see what a contrast there is between a food and a drug.

The lethal dose of a food is none at all. What kills you? You are starved to death. The normal dose is what you eat normally, 100. I starve a man, and I measure the injury which he receives at different points. I can mathematically plat the point where he will die.

That one chart shows to this committee in a graphic form, better than any argument could, the position of a drug in a food as compared with the food itself. They are diametrically opposite. The lethal dose of one is the normal dose of the other, and vice versa. Therefore the argument de minimis as far as harmlessness is concerned is a wholly illogical and unmathematical argument, and can be demonstrated by calculus to be so.

When the committee went into executive session to put this bill into its final shape, I was asked to sit with them. This is as near to being a member of Congress as I ever reached.