View report page

(80)
was introduced it was intended merely to be a consolidating Act with a
view to bringing th* whole of Food and Drugs Administration up to date,
but th* war prevented this, and much piecemeal legislation has been
passed under the description of Emergency Orders,, Many writers have
referred to the Amendment Act as a "Hygiene" Act, but it was more than
this. It is doubtful whether any Government is sufficiently strong at
the present time to faring in the wholesale legislation necessary to
safeguard health, if it is realised that the British have passed from
being a nation which eats fleshly cooked food in the home or in small
restaurants to one which consumes food cooked days or months before it
is eaten and not always even kept in refrigerators or under sterile
conditions for much of the intervening periods.
One of the main objects of the Act is to enable temporary legislation
to be made permanent. This accounted for much of the delay in
the passing of the Amendment Act and has retarded the introduction of
the Consolidation Act. The power of the Minister to make fresh orders
had been greatly extended. From the public analyst's point of view
legislation has become necessary in order to obtain efficient control
ever the large number of chemicals, now being used as fertilisers, weed
destroyers, insecticides, and fungicides, not to mention the use of
anti-oxidants for the prevention of the oxidation of fats and vitamins,
and even anti-biotics, which are now included as regular ingredients of
animal foods.
In the 1938 Act the definition of food included "any substance
intended for use in the preparation of food", 'but this does not appear
to have been appreciated by most Local Authorities. The point is made
much clearest in the new Act fey enabling a sampling officer to take a
sample of any food "or of any substance capable of being used in the
preparation of food, which appears to him to be intended for sale
This provision enables articles such as enamelled jugs pails etc*,, to
be sampled, if it is thought that they might be used for the preparation
of food and one has to remember that "the use of enamelled pails for the
preparation of lemonade caused severe poisoning from antimony some
years ago and that the Minister of Health published a special report
about such enamels. Whilst the definition of food itself has been
widened there is now an extended provision that if the public analyst
certifies a food to be a food to which amy particular regulations apply,
that food may be seised and condemned on the order of a magistrate.
Similarly the Minister may now require manufacturers to produce evidence
concerning the composition and chemical formulae of substances which it
is proposed to add to foods. It will in future be unnecessary to prove
that a label or advertisement is "otherwise" calculated to mislead. The
Amendment Act permits the Minister to make regulations prohibiting the
sale of milks of higher quality unless they conform to certain minimum
standard® - this will bring Channel Island and Devon milks under the
control of the Food and Drugs Act, though it has not, so far, been made
illegal to sell milk containing less than 3.0 per cent of fat or less
than 8.5 per cent of solids-not-fat. The definition of cream has been
completely revised. In future three substances appearing to be cream
be sold:- genuine cream, reconstituted cross, and imitation cream
and, from the wording of the Act, it would appear that a cream bus must