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prosecutions have since been made of persons handling meat in a
careless manner.
It is unnecessary to deal with other foods, or to mention in detail
the almost bewildering mass of acts, orders, and regulations, with their
amending and consolidating acts. Their effect is to be found in the
slow but steady improvement recorded year by year in the statistics of
adulteration collated from the reports of Sale of Food and Drugs Act
authorities in various parts of the country. In 1877 approximately
20 per cent. of all samples were found to be adulterated, that is, one
out of five was condemned. To-day, the percentage is roughly six,
and it slowly drops year by year. The number of samples examined
yearly is about 120,000.
Legislation has, of course, something to do with this improvement,
but education has a great deal more. There has grown up a public
opinion which will not tolerate frauds that were perpetrated with
impunity years ago. For instance, there was once in London a more
or less open trade in exhausted tea leaves, which had been dried,
immersed in a solution of gum, again dried, and then sold to tea-shops
and eating houses at a rate of 2d. a pound. That sort of thing would
not be tolerated at the present day, legislation or no legislation.
We may now consider food legislation dealing with the use of
chemical preservatives to prevent the rapid decomposition of food;
and two regulations will have to be dealt with. In 1912 were passed
the Public Health (Milk and Cream) Regulations which prohibited the
use of preservatives in milk and restricted their use in cream; and in
1927 there came into force the Public Health (Preservatives and
Colouring Matters in Food) Regulations, which prohibited the use
of preservatives in any foods but those specifically mentioned in a
comparatively short list and which stated the maximum amounts of
the permitted preservatives, sulphurous and benzoic acids and their
salts, and, in brief, very drastically reduced the use of chemical
preservatives and colouring matters in food.
The decomposition of food is brought about by the action of microorganisms
such as bacteria and moulds, and without these living agents
relatively little change occurs. This is why food may be kept good for
years by heating it sufficiently to kill all living bacteria and moulds
and immediately sealing it up in a glass metal container so that no new