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159
There has been a notable decrease during the year in drug adulteration, due
doubtless to the prosecutions against offenders in former years.
The articles reported against were: one sample of compound tincture of
rhubarb, from which one-ninth of its volume of glycerine had been removed;
the vendor was cautioned ; and one sample of iron pill, certified as being
36 per cent. deficient in ferrous carbonate; the vendor in this case was
proceeded against and fined £2 and 17s. 6d. expenses.
PRESCRIPTIONS.
I had occasion last year to comment on the laxity that appeared to prevail
in the compounding of prescriptions, as 12 out of 25, or 52.0 per cent., made
up by chemists in the City were inaccurately dispensed.
During the year under review 18 were examined by your Public Analyst,
and 2, or 11.1 per cent., reported against. Proceedings were instituted in
each case. In one, where a chemist had supplied "Pil. plumbi cum opio"
16.9 per cent. deficient in lead acetate, the summons was dismissed owing to
the form in which the Analyst's certificate was made out. The other instance
was a particularly bad one as the vendor, instead of dispensing the prescription
viz., Pil. plumbi cum opio, a British Pharmacopoeia preparation, supplied an
article known as Plummer's Pill, to which he stated that he had added
approximately three-quarters of a grain of opium, an amount considerably in
excess of that which should have been present in the pill asked for, and for
which he had no authority. The vendor was fined £10, and £4 4s. expenses,
and as he had been convicted for offences under the Food and Drugs Act on
three previous occasions, the facts were brought to the notice of both the
Pharmaceutical Society and the Society of Apothecaries of London.
MALT VINEGAR.
Of sixteen samples of malt vinegar submitted to the Public Analyst, six,
or 37.5 per cent., were certified to be "vinegar other than malt vinegar."
Five prosecutions were instituted against the vendors, one case being dismissed,
and in the others, fines were imposed, varying from £5 with 17s. 6d. expenses,
and £8 and 18s. 6d. expenses.
The result of this exposure has been that anyone asking for "malt
vinegar" at small shops in the City where vinegar is sold on draught is told
either that they do not keep it or that they cannot guarantee it to be made
from malt. Much of the article sold as vinegar at such places is a solution
of coloured and flavoured acetic acid. There is at present no statutory
definition of "vinegar." There is no objection to such artificial vinegar
being sold under some designation which retains the word "vinegar,"
provided it also makes the nature of the product apparent.
In January, 1908, a most interesting report "on the preparation and sale
of vinegar in relation to the Sale of Food and Drugs Act," by Dr. J. M.
Hamill, was published by the Local Government Board (Medical Department),
an abstract of which was presented to the Sanitary Committee by your
Medical Officer on 26th May, 1908.
This deals very fully with the matter, and should be consulted by anyone
interested in the vinegar question.