London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
View report page
Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Bethnal Green 1900
The Chief Inspector's annual report on the work of the sanitary department for the year ending December, 1900
This page requires JavaScript
Continued from previous page...
| Name of Vendor. | Nature of Offence. | Result. |
|---|---|---|
| W. G. D | Butter containing 931/2 per cent, of Foreign Fat | Penalty £1 and £3 3s. costs. |
| Ditto | Butter containing 93 per cent, of Foreign Fat | Penalty £1. |
| R. W | Milk—13 per cent, of added Water | Ordered to pay 12/6 costs. |
| T. L | Butter containing 92 per cent, of Foreign Fat | Summons dismissed The agent having admitted she had a foreknowledge of the nature of the trade carried on by having purchased samples previously; the Magistrate ruled she could not be prejudiced. |
| Ditto | ||
| Exposing Margarine for sale without being properly labelled. | Penalty £50. There were previous convictions and the learned Magistrate made some very strong remarks on the nature of the defence put in, which was palpably untrue. |
Before leaving this subject of the Food and Drugs Act, I should
like to refer to a question recently raised on Mr. Stokes' annual
report, which compares the large number of adulterated samples
taken in this district with that of London as a whole, and implies
some neglect in enforcing these Acts in this district. Anything
more ridiculously fallacious than this camparison is hard to imagine.
To attempt to compare results without any knowledge of how
these results are obtained is an absolute waste of time. Further,
one would suppose that when the amount of detection is found
year after year in one district to be above the average it might
possibly occur to those who seem ever on the alert to discourage an
authority anxious to do its duty that there is something being done
on different lines to get at the dishonest trader. Certainly no one
with any real knowledge of how sampling has been done generally
would for one moment agree that because one has a number of
prosecutions in any particular district it necessarily follows there is
a larger amount of adulteration in that district than in others where
the work is differently carried out. If the standard of efficiency is