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The samples of condensed separated milk which were analysed, were found to
consist principally of sugar and water, the amount of fat being very small, averaging
less than 1 per cent. Each half pint tin which was labelled "Separated Milk," or
"Condensed Separated Milk," had been made approximately from two pints of
separated milk, i.e., milk from which about 90 per cent. of the fat had been abstracted.
The composition of such condensed milk as this, renders it quite unfit for rearing
infants on. The dangers attending the use of condensed separated milk for feeding
infants was considered by the Vestry in connection with a communication from the
Vestry of Camberwell, containing the following recommendations which had been
adopted by that Vestry:—
(a) That the Government be asked to at once introduce a short Bill into
Parliament to deal with this serious danger, requiring that persons
manufacturing or importing condensed milk, should state in plain language
on the outside of each tin what quantity of the milk contained in the tin it
would be necessary to use to obtain the full benefits derivable from a pint
of new English milk;
(b) that posters and bills be printed and circulated throughout the parish, and
that the Registrars of Births be asked to hand to each person on registering
a birth, a handbill containing the necessary information with respect to the
danger attendant upon the use of condensed separatedmilk for infant
feeding.
The Shoreditch Vestry decided to support the Camberwell Vestry, and take
similar action, and posters and handbills were distributed through the parish,
pointing out to parents and others having the care of children, that if infants are fed
solely upon milk containing only one per cent. of fat, they are not only deprived of
the natural quantity of fat they should receive, but they run very grave risk of
disorders of the digestive organs, which are so frequently attended with fatal results
in early life.
FOOD CONDEMNED AND DESTROYED.
The usual supervision has been exercised by the Vestry's sanitary inspectors over
the street markets, and steps were taken as far as practicable, to prevent animal and
vegetable refuse being deposited in the roadways and on the footways. Generally the
food stuffs exposed for sale were of most excellent quality. The following unsound
articles of food came under the observation of your officers, and were destroyed as
unfit for human consumption:—Veal, 11 pieces; mixed cuttings, 58 lbs.; mutton, 2
halves of sheep and 10 lbs; sausages, 3 lbs.; beef, 2 cwt.; pork, 73 lbs.; peas, 7
bushels; sheep's kidneys, 1 cwt.; skate, 32 lbs.; mackerel, 91; haddocks, 18 stone;
and rabbits 7 cwt., 3 qrs., 4 lbs.
Several pieces of pork, which were unfit for the food of man, were found upon a
stall in Hoxton Street, by inspector Jordan. They were seized by the inspector, and