From DNA to Beer

Lectures on the adulteration of food and culinary poisons, the detection of poisons in general, and of adulterations in sundry chemical preparations, &c. used in medicine and the arts, with the means of discovering them: and rules for determining the purity of substances : delivered in the United States Military Academy.

Cutbush discusses the use of additives to medicines, foods, and alcohol and how to identify poisons. Predating Louis Pasteur’s work in determining microbes as the agents of fermentation, the book describes fermentation and other processes as “spontaneous,” which reflects then widely accepted theory of organisms’ and natural processes’ coming into existence spontaneously from dust, air, or other organisms.