nding one of the many mixtures that are
made up as medicines rather than food. While the substances thus
incorporated are of value in their place, they possess no virtues
which are absent from the pure cocoa, and cannot be in any way
considered an improvement of cocoa as food. The sooner this practice
of drug taking under cover of diet comes to an end the better it will
be for the national health.

Formerly Venetian red, umber, peroxide of iron, and even brick-dust,
were employed to produce a cheaper article, but modern science and
legislation combined have rendered such practices almost impossible.
As early as the reign of George III. an Act[8] was passed, providing
that, "if any article made to resemble cocoa shall be found in the
possession of any dealer, under the name of 'American cocoa' or
'English cocoa,' or any other name of cocoa, it shall be forfeited,
and the dealer shall forfeit L100." Yet this Act was allowed to become
so much a dead letter that in 1851 the _Lancet_ published the analysis
of fifty-six preparations sold as "cocoa," of which only eight were
free from adulteration. In some of the "soluble cocoas," the
adulteration was as high as 65 per cent., potato starch in one case
forming 50 per cent. of the sample. The majority of the samples were
found to be coloured with mineral or earthy pigments, and specimens
treated with red lead are on exhibition at South Kensington.

The inclusion of the husk or shell in some of the cheaper forms of
chocolate is another reprehensible practice (strongly condemned), as
they do not possess the qualities for which the kernel or nib is so
highly prized. To prevent this practice it was enacted in 1770 that
the shells or husks should be seized or destroyed, and the officer
seizing them rewarded up to 20s. per hundredweight. From these a
light, but not unpalatable, table decoction is still prepared in
Ireland and elsewhere, under the designation of "miserables."

Among other beverages which have from time to time been produced from
the cacao was a fermented drink much in vogue at the Mexican Court, to
which it appears from the accounts of the conquest that Montezuma was
addicted, as "after the hot dishes (300 in number) had been removed,
every now and then was handed to him a golden pitcher filled with a
kind of liquor made from cacao, which is very exciting." One variety,
called _zaca_, drunk by the Itzas, consisted of cocoa mixed with a
fermented liquor prepared from