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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,—
During the twelve months succeeding to the date up to which
my last Annual Report was made, I received from your inspector
281 samples of various articles of food for analysis, consisting of
milk, bread, flour, tea, coffee, mustard, vinegar, gin, pickles, pepper,
cayenne pepper, preserved green peas, mushrooms, butter, beer,
arrowroot, sweets, whisky, and ketchup. These have all been analysed
and reported upon. 53 of the samples were found to be adulterated,
comprising 38 samples of milk, 2 of tea, 1 of coffee, 6 of
mustard, 4 of vinegar, and 3 of preserved green peas.
The proportion of cases in which adulteration has been detected
in the samples referred to in this Report, is considerably smaller
than it was in those reported upon in the previous year: thus, of the
samples analysed in 1873-4, thirty-three per cent., or one third of the
whole, was found to be adulterated, while the proportion during the
past year, 1874-5, has been less than nineteen per cent. There is
also in the results obtained during the same two periods, a similar
difference observable with reference to cases of milk, for while, in the
former year, of the samples of milk analysed, thirty-five per cent.
was adulterated, in the latter year the proportion has been only
twenty-four per cent.
In the early part of last year there was evidence of a considerable
diminution in the extent to which milk was adulterated, and I concluded
that we had to a great extent accomplished the object for
which we had been devoting so much attention to that article. The
inspector was therefore instructed to collect a larger proportion than
he had previously done of other articles, and for some time only a
few samples of milk were obtained, but during this period the dealers
fell back into their former practice, so that cases of adulteration became
again almost as frequent as ever. Latterly the inspector has
made it a rule to collect samples of milk every week from some parts
of his district, taking all parts in turn, and we have again succeeded
in diminishing the proportion of cases of adulteration of this article.
But even now, in relation to other articles of food, milk is that which
is the most frequently adulterated, and it appears that the method
usually resorted to of diluting it with water is so simple and easy,
and at the same time so difficult of detection by the general public,
that nothing short of the fear of the law, and the frequent visits of
the inspector will keep it in check.
With reference to many other articles of food, the improvement