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12
FOOD.
The administration of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts
is in the hands of the Middlesex County Council.
Unsound Food.—No unsound meat, fish, fruit or vegetables
were found exposed for sale during the year, but in four
instances food (80 lbs. fish) that was unfit for human consumption
was voluntarily surrendered to us by provision dealers.
No instances of food poisoning came to my notice during
the year.
There are 7 Slaughter-houses in the Borough. They are
well kept. Last year they were inspected on 52 occasions.
MILK.
Under the Milk (Special Designations) Order, 1923, 24
samples of milk which had been pasteurised were taken for
analysis. In the majority of instances it was found that the
pasteurised milk sold in this Borough was up to the required
standard. Pasteurised milk is milk that has been heated to a
temperature of 145°-150° F. for at least half-an-hour and immediately
cooled to a temperature of not more than 55° F.
Practically all the milk (except Grade A) sold in London
and other large towns is pasteurised, although it may not be
sold as such.
The milk supply of London comes from distant places, e.g.,
Somerset and Derbyshire, and if it were not pasteurised it
would rapidly go sour, especially during the warm weather.
It is the custom of milk retailers, therefore, to filter and heat
their milk on its arrival at their London depots, to cool it and
perhaps to bottle it, and later to retail it.
It is possible in some instances that milk and cream may
remain in cold storage for many days before it is delivered
to the purchaser, and it is also possible for surplus milk—that
is to say, milk which has travelled around the streets in a barrow
and has not been sold—to be re-heated for the purpose of preservation,
and again to be placed in cold storage. Some milk
firms sell milk which has been pasteurised as "fresh milk" or
"new milk" or merely "milk," rather than under its proper title
of "pasteurised milk"; and by this practice it. would seem that
they evade the obligations which the seller of pasteurised milk