Diphtheria is a potentially fatal, contagious disease that usually involves the nose, throat, and air passages but may also infect the skin. Its most striking feature is the formation of a grayish membrane covering the tonsils and upper part of the throat.
Pure Food and Drug Act: A Muckraking Triumph. The first Pure Food and Drug Act was passed in 1906. The purpose was to protect the public against adulteration of food and from products identified as healthful without scientific support. The original Pure Food and Drug Act was amended in 1912, 1913, and 1923. A greater extension of its scope took place in 1933.
The United States was very slow to recognize the need for a national food and drug law. Frederick Accum's Treatise on Adulterations of Food and Methods of Detecting Them had been published in London and Philadelphia in 1820, and Great Britain's first national food law was passed in 1860.ot until interstate commerce began its great expansion after the Civil War did the need for federal rulemaking become widely realized. The Pure Food Movement -- a grass roots phenomenon that germinated in the 1870's -- was the original and principal source of political support for the Food and Drugs Act of 1906.