Description
Book SynopsisA fascinating examination of the controversial work of Harvey Wiley, the founder of the pure food movement and an early crusader against the use of additives and preservatives in food. Though trained as a medical doctor, chemist Harvey Wiley spent most of his professional life advocating for pure foodfood free of both adulterants and preservatives. A strong proponent of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, still the basis of food safety legislation in the United States, Wiley gained fame for what became known as the Poison Squad experimentsa series of tests in which, to learn more about the effects of various chemicals on the human body, Wiley's own employees at the Department of Agriculture agreed to consume food mixed with significant amounts of various additives, including borax, saltpeter, copper sulfate, sulfuric acid, and formaldehyde. One hundred years later, Wiley's influence lives on in many of our current popular ideas about food: that the wrong food can kill you; that the r
Trade ReviewJonathan Rees's new biography of Wiley,
The Chemistry of Fear: Harvey Wiley's Fight for Pure Food, is not only about Wiley, but about scientific progress, the meaning of food and health, progressivism, the bureaucratic state, and that place where science and publicity meet. It's a great read.
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Historically ThinkingTable of ContentsIntroduction. Who Was Harvey Wiley?
Chapter One. Indiana
Chapter Two. Honey
Chapter Three. Sugar Beets
Chapter Four. Adulterated Food
Chapter Five. Meat
Chapter Six. Pure Food
Chapter Seven. Whiskey
Chapter Eight. Enforcement
Chapter Nine. Saccharin and Ketchup
Chapter Ten. Drugs
Chapter Eleven. Bleached Flour and Baking Powder
Chapter Twelve. Coca-Cola
Chapter Thirteen. Resignation
Chapter Fourteen. The Good Housekeeping Years
Conclusion. Wiley's Legacy
Acknowledgments
Notes
Essay on Sources
Index
