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101
SECTION E
Inspection of Food and Supervision of Food Premises
This year marks the centenary of the passing of the first Act
of Parliament for the prevention of adulteration of food and drink.
A Report issued by a Select Committee of the House of Commons
to the effect that adulteration of common articles of consumption
was widespread, resulted in the passing of this Act in 1860.
Today the attention of the Medical Officer of Health is more
often directed to the spread of infection by food than to the ill
effects of its adulteration or chemical contamination. Theoretically
such infections are wholly preventable, but the cost to the National
Health Service and the loss of man hours with the consequent fall
in productivity testify to the present incomplete methods of control.
The incidence of food infection and contamination is such that it
requires the closest team work between the Medical Officer of
Health, the Food Inspector, the Analyst, the Bacteriologist and, not
least, the Food Trader himself to reduce it to a minimum.
Since the middle of the 18th century the population has grown
from 7½ to 51 millions and from an agricultural to an industrial
nation. In terms of food and drink, this rise has meant more and
more importation and the necessity for greater and better methods
of food preservation.
The origin of food preservation is ancient and obscure. For
centuries man has known how to preserve his milk as butter and
cheese, his grapes in the form of wine and his meat by salting. It
was only in 1810, when a certain Peter Durand took out a British
Patent, that preservation by canning became a practical proposition.
However, it is only in recent years that canning ousted the bottling
process and reached an estimated world output of 15.3 million tons
by 1958.
Fifty years ago frozen meat was largely unknown and the
nation depended almost entirely on home supplies, but today
refrigeration, although of comparatively recent origin is an essential
part of the carriage and transport of meat, fish, poultry and eggs,
etc., in a country where only approximately 5% of its population is
engaged in food production. Even prosaic articles such as cheese,
powdered milk, margarine, bacon, ham, etc., all represent various
methods of food preservation.
To all intents and purposes the tubercle bacillus in milk is
eliminated; the production of the loaf is automatic and "untouched
by hand"; many other foods are mass produced, pre-packed and
distributed mechanically and although we may pride ourselves on
having removed the more flagrant forms of adulteration, with all