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69
As there has been a considerable change in the method of administering
the Food and Drugs Acts in the Borough during 1921, I do not think it is
possible to conclude from these figures that adulteration increased in 1921The
table does show, however, that there has been much less adulteration
during the last three years than during the war.
The percentage of adulteration for the whole of England and Wales in
1920 was 7.1, for the Metropolitan Boroughs 5.1.
In previous years each inspector only took samples in the district to
which he is attached for sanitary work. These districts are small and the
inspectors well known to the inhabitants of them. A fraudulent vendor must
have been able to reduce considerably the chances of his being detected by
watching the movements of the district inspector. Another point against the
old system was that as the inspectors worked independently of each other
sampling was very erratic. During some weeks there would be more samples
than this laboratory could conveniently deal with, whilst during other weeks
there would be very few samples.
For 1921 it was arranged that the inspectors should take a week in turn
for Food and Drugs sampling only, and that each inspector should cover the
whole of the Borough taking a proportion of his samples in each of the
districts. This system is much more satisfactory than the old one. There is
now always one inspector on sampling duty, and as there is a period of roughly
15 weeks between the same inspector's turns, he works for most of his time in
a district in which he is not known and has a much better chance of obtaining
samples of adulterated articles. Further, now that samples arrive in the
laboratory regularly, I have been able to increase the number per year by about
200.
Table C shows the distribution of the 1,402 samples, taken under the
Food and Drugs Acts, amongst the various districts.