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Public Health: the use of food adulteration

Putting dangerous additives into food was not uncommon: for example, one could find

• powdered glass in sugar
• white lead in flour
• red lead in tea
• mahogany shavings in tea

Many people ingested these and other substances and died. The cartoon is a contemporary comment on this.

LITTLE GIRL: "If you please, Sir, Mother says, will you let her have a quarter of a pound of your best tea to kill the rats with, and a ounce of chocolate as would get rid of the black beetles?" (Punch, 14 August 1855)