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94
Ice Creams, etc.
(Special Report by the Medical Officer of Health).
The London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1902,
came into force on November 1st last, and deals, inter alia, with
ice-creams, or other similar commodities. Powers are given to
the several Metropolitan Borough Councils to deal with the preparation
and sale of ice-creams, and other similar commodities,
throughout their respective Boroughs. The ingredients used in
the making of Ice-cream are themselves fit for consumption, but
during process of manufacture may become contaminated by the
germs of infectious or other diseases, and in that way readily
convey infection, or cause illness.
The common way of making Ice-cream is to boil together milk,
starch (generally cornflour), sugar and fruit essence. The mixture
is allowed to cool naturally, and is afterwards frozen, and
then sold in the usual way in the streets as hokey-pokey, etc.
The cooling process may (often does) take place under insanitary
conditions, e.g., in an over-crowded living-room, a dirty backyard,
or even in close proximity to a w.c.; and in this way the
mixture may become contaminated in such a way as to give rise
to disease (infectious, ptomaine poisoning, etc.) in those who may
partake of it. Lambeth has been, in the past, free from any
outbreak of disease traced to Ice-creams, but despite this immunity,
legislation was wanted, and the Borough Council of Lambeth
did not oppose the London County Council's Bill (as far
as Ice-creams were concerned) when it was before Parliament,
more especially as the powers sought were for the Local Authorities
and not for the London County Council itself.
It may be that Lambeth's immunity is to be explained by the
fact that the kind of trade in Ice-creams liable to cause trouble
from a health point of view is the "street " trade, generally in the
hands of Italians, whose ideas of personal (and domestic) cleanliness
are not exactly in accord with those of Lambeth. In this
respect, Lambeth is not much troubled—the Boroughs of Holborn,
Finsbury, St. Pancras, and Islington being those chiefly
concerned. The Sections of the London County Council
(General Powers) Act, 1902, Part viii., are as follow, and came
into operation on November 1st, 1902: —
Any person, being a manufacturer of, or merchant or dealer
in, Ice-creams or other similar commodity, who, within the
County—