London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Finsbury 1913

Annual report on the public health of Finsbury for the year 1913

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124
Public Analyst.— The Public Analyst is Mr. J. Kear Colwell,
F.I.C. His chemical laboratory is in the Finsbury Town Hall.
He is paid the following fees :—
1. For 500 samples taken each year under the Sale of Food
and Drugs Acts—£250.
2. For an additional 100 samples of milk taken each year
under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts—7s. 6d. per
sample.
3. For all samples taken outside the Sale of Food and Drugs
Acts—15s. per sample.
Examples of samples taken in recent years under (3) are given
below :—
Water for sewage contamination.
Tinned salmon for poisonous metals.
Rag Hock for chlorides.
Ice Cream Shops. —These are all periodically inspected. At
the end of 1913, there were on the register the names and
addresses of the proprietors of 105 shops in the borough.
They were inspected on 108 occasions, and as a result 20
notices were served for sanitary and other defects. There were
no prosecutions. The methods of manufacture adopted by
itinerant ice cream vendors are far from satisfactory.
The difficulties of supervision are increased by the fact that the
itinerant may sleep in one borough, manufacture his ice cream
in another borough, sell it in many other boroughs, and may have
a stale or inaccurate address on his barrow. It seems to be quite
a usual practice for many of these barrow men to make the ice
cream together in one house, and to give the address of this
house, when challenged, or to have it on their barrows. Following
any enquiry they adopt another place of manufacture, and
are for the time being lost. Some appear to have a fairly well