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1922]
54
They received 710 visits from the District Sanitary Inspectors, who served 36 notices,
for the execution of various sanitary improvements and the cleansing of dirty utensils.
BACTERIOLOGICAL EXAMINATIONS OF MILK.
Three milks were bacteriologically examined. The gelatine count at room temperature
of 48 hours being 12,600,000 organisms per c.c., 5,900,000 and 4,900,000. Bacillus coli
was absent from -0001 c.c. and present in 001 c.c., and acid-fast bacilli negative in all three
milks. The cream and the centrifuge deposits from 10 c.c. of each sample were injected
intra-p.eritoneally into guinea pigs. No loss of weight occurred in any animal from
week to week. Post-mortem examination of the 3 animals upwards of five weeks after,
inoculation was negative for tuberculosis.
ADMINISTRATION OF FOOD AND DRUGS ACTS, PUBLIC HEALTH (MILK
AND CREAM) REGULATIONS, MILK AND DAIRIES ACT, 1922.
FOOD ORDERS, Etc.
The purity of the food supply as protected by the above Acts was the subject of special
concern during the year, more especially as the Borough suffered from an apparently
organised attempt on the part of itinerant vendors to foist upon the poorer population
sophisticated milk.
In Islington special examination was made for the presence of artificial colouring
matter. It would not appear that general action was taken throughout the country, at
least to any great extent, to examine for colouring matter, for it is recorded that the total
number of samples reported on by Public Analysts to local authorities in England and
Wales of milk and separated milk as showing this particular form of sophistication was 183
while of these 34 were from the Borough of Islington out of 46 specially examined. While
it is quite true that the Borough was unfortunate in the attention it received from the
particular organised vendors referred to, it is difficult to believe that the Borough alone
suffered more than the rest of the country in the proportion here represented of artificially
coloured milk.
Reference is made in the Report to the Ministry of Health under the Public Health
(Milk and Cream) Regulations, page 58, to the sale of colouring matter and preservative
in Islington for addition to milk.
At my request, Inspector Green has classified, according to his experience in the
Borough, the cheap milk sellers and their methods. The three groups were connected with
each other more or less. The information obtained was put by my Committee at the
disposal of the public Press, and considerable attention was thereby drawn to the matter,
more especially to the fact of how important it was to ask for milk, and not say " pint"
or " quart " merely.
A summary is here given, including special prosecutions from September to December
of the previous year, 1921, as this is necessary to show the proceedings of the particular
milk sellers who continued their operations into the year 1922, when their system somewhat
changed, inasmuch as they began adding to the milk mixtures an infinitesimal
quantity of annatto, a vegetable dye, which gives the milk a rich, creamy appearance.
Particular attention is drawn to the last paragraph of Group "A," which illustrates
the clever manner in which legal consequences were evaded. The proper price for milk