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ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ANALYST
Appointed under the Adulteration of Food, Drink, and Drugs Act.
TO THE BOARD OF WORKS FOR THE ST. GILES DISTRICT.
Gentlemen,—
My appointment as Analyst to your Board dates from the
29th of March, 1873, and this Report will comprise a brief statement
of the Analyses I have made in the twelve months commencing from
that date. I have from to time furnished you with detailed Reports,
in which full particulars have been given, which it will be unnecessary
to repeat here.
The total number of Analyses made has been 398, and the
substances analysed have comprised milk, bread, flour, tea, coffee,
sugar, butter, pepper, mustard, vinegar, sauces, jam, marmalade,
confectionery, arrowroot, rhubarb, carbonate of soda, citric acid, and
white precipitate.
Among these articles, adulterations have been detected in milk,
mustard, coffee, pepper, bread, butter, and vinegar.
Milk is the article that appears to have been most largely and
generally adulterated; and as this is a very important article of diet,
the attention of the Inspector was for some time confined in a great
measure to the collection of samples of milk from all the dealers in
that article throughout the district. The number of samples thus
collected was 325; and of these, no less than 114 were found to be
adulterated, and some of them very largely adulterated, with water.
In many of the other cases, although the milk had not been
adulterated according to the legally recognized meaning of the
term "adulterated," it had been deteriorated in quality by the
abstraction of part of the cream.
Mustard is also an article that has been very generally adulterated,
by the addition of flour and turmeric; but this is a much less serious
adulteration. Of 16 samples of mustard submitted to me by the
Inspector for analysis, 10 have been found to be adulterated.
I have also found 2 samples of coffee, 2 of pepper, 1 of bread,
1 of butter, and 3 of vinegar adulterated.
It is satisfactory to be able to state, however, that in none of these
cases have the adulterations been such as to be likely to prove
injurious to health, excepting that in the case of milk, the lowering
of its nutritive properties by the addition of water may be injurious
to the health of those, and especially of children, with whom it
constitutes a principal article of food.
There is evidence already of considerable improvement in the
quality of many of the articles of food supplied to the public.
I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen,
Your obedient servant,
17, Bloomsbury Square, T. REDWOOD.
8th June, 1874.