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35.
FREE WASHING FACILITIES.
Free washing facilities are installed in every public sanitary convenience
in the borough. These facilities are being made use of by an
increasing number of persons. It may be worth recording that the
Shoreditch Borough Council were one of the pioneers in providing free
washing facilities to the public at sanitary conveniences, and it is
pleasing to record that many local authorities have now followed suit.
With the ever-present danger of serious typhoid infection and the
apparent increase of cases of mild food poisoning, it must be apparent
that the value of free facilities to wash the hands after using the water
closet must be a sound preventative in the transference of infection.
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS OF FOOD.
400 samples were submitted to the Public Analyst during the year, giving
a rate of 8.9 per 1,000 population.
They were as follows:-
Arrowroot 4; Aspirin tablets 4; "Bemax" 3; Black pudding 3; Boric
Acid 4; Borax 6; Borax and Honey 4; Bread 16; Butter 5; Cake and
pudding mixtures 18; Cakes and pastries 16; Camphorated oil 2;
Cascara Sagrada tablets 6; Cheese 1; Cocoa 2; Coffee 3; Coffee and
Chicory essence 5; Cooking fat 5; Drinks (soft) 5; Epsom salts 5;
Eucalyptus oil 6: Fish paste 15; Gin 6; Glauber salts l; Glycerine 2;
Golden raising powder 1; Gravy powder 1; Herbs 2; Ice Cream 18;
Iodine 4; Jam 5; Lemon Curd 3; Margarine 4; Marmalade 3; Meat
Paste 8; Meat products 42; Milk 34; Milk, condensed 4; Mincemeat 2;
Mustard 1; Paraffin, medicinal 4; Pickles 6; Rum 6; Sauce 11;
Sausages and sausage meat 5; Sausage, cooked 13; Scones 1;
Seidlitz powder 4; Soda, bicarbonate 4; Soup, canned 15; Soup
powder 6; Spaghetti, canned 1; Spices 15; Stuffing mixture 3;
Tea 8; Vegetables, canned 10; Vinegar 3; Whiskey 6.
Of the 18 samples of Ioe Cream taken, two were found to contain only
0.3 per cent of fat. Legal proceedings were instituted and the
defendants were fined £1 and ordered to pay three guineas costs. The
remaining 16 samples had an average fat content of 12.0 per cent, the
figures ranging from 8.7 per cent to 23.3 per cent.
The two samples of canned Mincemeat were found to contain an
excessive proportion of tin. The remainder of the stock (4,656 tins) was
surrendered and destroyed.
Warning letters were sent to vendors in respect of minor adulterations
and irregularities in Seidlitz powder and Iodine, and to the
manufacturer in respect of Cake flour.