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i.
APPENDIX
CONTAINING THE
REPORT OF THE PUBLIC ANALYST,
A. Wynter Blyth,
Barrister-at-Law, Fellow of the Institute of Chemistry,
etc., etc.
REPORT OF THE PUBLIC ANALYST.
During 1908 705 samples were analysed under the Sale of
Food and Drugs Act. Of these 40 were certified to be
adulterated, that is about 5.6 per cent. No conclusion can
however be drawn from a crude percentage of this kind. Dairy
produce being by far the most liable to fraudulent manipulation,
it follows that if all the samples had been milk and butter, the
percentage would have been higher. On the other hand, the
articles least liable to be tampered with are tea and loaf sugar,
the one being examined by the Customs and the other a crystalline
substance difficult to supplant by a cheaper material; if
these articles had formed the greater part of the samples, then
the amount of adulteration would have been practically a
negative quantity. On the other hand the percentage of
adulteration in any single article, such as milk, affords a rough
sort of guide to the prevalence or not in the district of adulteration
of that particular article; there are, however, fallacies here,
for it depends much as to the manner in which the samples are
obtained whether the offenders are caught or not.
Dairy Produce.
Of 236 samples of milk 16, or just under 7 per cent., were
certified as adulterated. In 6 out of the 16 milk fat was
deficient in varying quantities from 8 up to 36 per cent.; in
others the offence was watering from a minimum of 3 per cent.