Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Report on the sanitary condition and vital statistics during the year 1915 together with the report of the Chief Sanitary Inspector
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tween their analyses and the original analyses of the
Public Analyst. The difference in question largely
arising from the fact that the Public Analyst examined
the milk when in a fresh and sweet state, and that it did
not arrive at the Government Laboratory until many
days after, when, of course, it was in a sour and
decomposing condition, rendering an accurate analysis
more difficult.
With regard to the two samples sold as milk and
water, and in respect to which the results of the Public
Analyst were not at first challenged, it is interesting to
note that, in order to overcome the difficulties of the
Government report and to give some sort of countenance
to the story there was, according to Counsel's own statement
made in Court, at the adjourned hearing a professional
Analyst prepared to swear that the added water
referred to could only have been present as one of the
resultant causes of the defendant having scalded this
particular milk. Any comment of mine would, of course,
detract from the beauty of such an interesting theory.
In the result, the defendant escaped conviction on
account of these technicalities, but it should be pointed
out that, even on the showing of the Somerset House
certificates, here was milk being sold to the public
"15 per cent. deficient in cream" in one case, and in
the other case" not less than 4 per cent. deficient in
cream" and with "not less than 1 per cent. of added
water."
The defendant's record is as follows, so far as
police-court proceedings are concerned:—