Formaldehyde in the Milk
The Fashion Cafe sues the Royal Dairy and Dairy Commissioner McDonald for $7,500, claiming the milk it was served was laced with embalming fluid — and that the official paid to police the dairies knew all about it.
The proprietors of the Fashion Cafe have sued the Royal Dairy and Dairy Commissioner McDonald for $7,500, claiming that the dairy sold them milk containing formaldehyde, and that the commissioner knew that the dairy sold such milk.
As a matter of fact the proprietors of the Royal Dairy have been arrested before for doctoring their milk, and have been convicted on the charge, and it now seems that in spite of this they continue at the same old game. The poisoned milk is injurious to health, and it is the duty of the dairy commissioner to either prevent dairies from using it, or to keep on with his prosecutions until he puts the offenders out of business.
If consumers of milk would take samples from that furnished them by dairies, submit it to chemists, and in case that it was found to be doctored, turn it over to the authorities, this abuse would soon be done away with.
“It is the duty of the dairy commissioner to either prevent dairies from using it, or to keep on with his prosecutions until he puts the offenders out of business.”
Formaldehyde was a favourite preservative in an era before refrigeration, and the fight against it was one of the first great American food-safety campaigns. What makes this item sting is the second defendant: the regulator sued alongside the repeat offender he was supposed to shut down. Substitute any modern adulterant and any modern agency and the shape of the story is unchanged.
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