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London County Council
Report by the Medical Officer presenting a report by Dr. Hamer, Medical Officer
(General Purposes), on the Inspection of Food by Riparian Sanitary Authorities.
(Printed by order of the Public Health Committee, 12th July, 1006.)
The Committee have caused inquiry to be made from time to time concerning the efficiency of
the system of inspection of foodstuffs arriving in London via the Thames, and this subject was considered
in 1903, when the Council, in conjunction with the Borough Councils concerned, successfully
resisted a proposed extension of the Port Sanitary Authority's jurisdiction to warehouses and wharves
outside the limits of the port of London. The methods of inspection in operation in 1903 were felt to
be of a more or less tentative character, and I reported some six months ago that it was desirable
further inquiry into the matter should be made by the Council, with the result that Dr. Hamer was
directed to undertake this duty. In the course of his inspections it became clear that whilst useful
work was being done in some districts, there was laxity of administration in others, and in particular
the need for the appointment of a special food inspector in Bermondsey was, on my report, made the
subject of a communication from the Council to the Borough Council in May of this year. Dr. Hamer,
meantime, has completed his inquiries and has reported upon the subject of inspection of foodstuffs in
the port generally.
The main outcome of his investigation is to show that river inspection needs to be considered in
relation to the inspection which should be practised at other portals of entry of foodstuffs into London,
otherwise the devotion of special attention to one avenue of approach merely leads to the diversion of
traffic in unsound foods to other avenues less subject to scrutiny. In fact, the work already done by the
port and riparian authorities, while it has been hampered in many ways, e.g., by uncertainty as to the
limits of the powers possessed by the authorities concerned and by the smallness of the staff engaged
upon the duty, has at least made it quite obvious that one of the most important questions arising
in connection with attempting to perfect the system of river inspection is the need of co-ordination
of the methods of supervision exercised at the various points of entry, whether by river, rail or road,
and indeed of the adoption of a general scheme of inspection of foodstuffs brought into London.
It may be pointed out that in the case of meat the public health could, in a measure, be safeguarded,
so far as relates to diseased conditions visible at the time of slaughter, by ensuring that proper
inspection was carried out at that time, whether in foreign countries, at the various ports of this country,
or in the country itself, but in addition to such original inspection, it is essential that the condition of
the meat as to soundness at the time it enters London be made subject to investigation.
The need for such frontier inspection on entering the County is equally necessary in the case
of fish, and tinned and preserved foods, which for the most part have not undergone any examination
with a view to guaranteeing fitness for consumption prior to being brought into London.
A second point of considerable importance is the need for ensuring that food which has once
been "surrendered," or "condemned," as unfit for human food, should not again find its way back
into the market, either in its original form or more or less completely disguised. That the risk of such
occurrence is, under existing conditions, a real one, is unfortunately too apparent. Unsound food is
purchased from owners by contractors who "make what they can out of it," and again sanitary authorities
are content to employ contractors and to hand over to them, in some instances after a preliminary
process of " denaturing," meat, etc., judged to be unfit for consumption. Even in those cases in which
the sanitary authority deals directly with condemned food it is customary to impose a charge for its
removal arrd destruction, and this practice undoubtedly tends to discourage the voluntary surrender
by owners of material which ought to be destroyed. An important means of safeguarding the public
would be afforded if the ownership of foodstuffs originally intended for human consumption, but which
have become unsound, were vested in the sanitary authority, who would effect the necessary removal and
destruction without cost.
Shirley F. Murphy,
Medical Officer of Health.
4th October, 1906.
11757- 1,000—29.11.06
s.s./13946