Arguing over adulteration: the success of the Analytical Sanitary Commission

Abstract

In the Lancet in the 1850s a series of reports described gruesome levels of adulteration in Londoners' food. Following a government inquiry, The Times lauded the supposed hero of the hour, Arthur Hill Hassall MD. In response a furious and acrimonious argument erupted in the letters-pages of The Times and two other medical journals. The details of this argument reveal that not everybody agreed that the success of the Analytical Sanitary Commission was down to Hassall's scientific evidence.