Hidden Killers Of The Victorian Home Page #3

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that it happens to other people.

Bread adulteration might ultimately

kill you

because of malnutrition,

but there was a greater,

more immediate danger that was

part of every child's diet.

For the Victorians, milk was a cheap

and important source of calcium.

A healthy food, it was thought.

However, in 1882,

20,000 milk samples were tested

and revealed that one-fifth

had been adulterated.

A clue as to what was going on

came from the domestic goddess

of her day, Mrs Beeton.

The Victorians sought advice

on all manner of things,

and when it came to food,

Mrs Beeton was their guru.

According to the 1888 edition of

her Book Of Household Management,

"Milk", she said,

"could be purified by preparations

"of which the principal constituent

is boracic acid,"

and she adds, "It is said that most

of the milk that comes to London

"is treated in this way."

She concludes,

"Fortunately for the consumer,

"it is a quite harmless addition."

But was it as harmless

as Mrs Beeton believed?

Microbiologist Matthew Avison

has devised an experiment

that tests Mrs Beeton's advice.

Boracic acid was a component

of a product called borax,

an alkali which was used

during the Victorian period

to prolong the life of milk.

This milk doesn't taste very nice,

so you would throw it away.

The Victorians would say, "That's

a waste, so let's do something to it

"that removes the sour taste",

and what they would have done

is added alkalis.

When fresh, milk has a neutral

pH measurement of around seven,

but over time, as it sours or spoils

and becomes contaminated

with bacteria,

it becomes more acidic

and its pH measurement drops.

So the Victorians worked out,

probably by trial and error,

that if you add alkali to this,

it would neutralise the acid

and I've calculated that that will

neutralise the acid in this milk,

so just give it a bit of a shake

and then we'll show, hopefully,

that it gives a pH closer to neutral.

So you can see this has gone back to

6.6, which is approximately neutral.

It's neutralised the acid, it's now

made this milk palatable again.

This new wonder alkali,

sold in the shops as borax,

was so popular it became

a staple of the Victorian larder.

But alarmingly, borax wasn't

only used to treat milk -

it was also marketed

as a wonderfully versatile product,

as I found when I read

the journals of the time.

I'm just looking at these ads

and there's a sketch from 1893

and there's this absolutely

extraordinary one-page ad -

"Californian Household Treasure."

It says, "It's absolutely pure

and absolutely safe.

"It possesses qualities

that are exceptional

"and unknown to any other substance

and it purifies water,

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