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48
Remarks.
It may be convenient if I here state that, during the year ending
March 31st last, I received no samples of any of the following articles
of food:—Bread, condensed milk, cream, cheese, lard, oatmeal, flour,
yeast, tinned meats, meat extracts, jams, pickles, vinegar, sauces,
olive oil, wines, rum, brandy, beer, and aerated beverages; nor of the
following drugs:—Syrup of senna, compound liquorice powder, paregoric,
syrup of poppies, sal volatile, glycerine, saffron, wine of quinine, tincture
of quinine, ammoniated tincture of quiuine, antimonial wine, wine
of ipecacuanha, citrate of iron and quinine, mercury with chalk, Fowler's
solution, fluid magnesia, syrup of squill, precipitated sulphur, spirit of
nitrous ether, solution of perchloride of iron, and rectified spirit. I would
respectfully suggest that samples of some of these articles should from time
to time be purchased. I would venture to point out, also, that it would be
well if the collection of samples for analysis could, as far as possible, be
spread over the whole of each quarter, and proceeded with at short and
fairly regular intervals (fortnightly, for instance), as was the case during
the first three quarters of the year. The 49 samples representing the
fourth quarter were all obtained between the 4th and 31st March,
inclusive.
Milk.
It will be seen from Table II. that the adulterated samples of milk
constituted over one-fifth of the entire number of samples of milk analysed.
The proportions of added water found in the samples returned as adulterated
ranged from 4 per cent. to 38 per cent.; and the sample containing
38 per cent. of added water had also been deprived of 28 per cent. of fat.
In this case a fine of 10s. only was imposed! In 16 instances, samples
were reported on as "poor" or "inferior" quality: in cases coming under
this category, there is not infrequently a probability that a part of the fat
originally present has been removed, and that the samples are not otherwise
immaculate; but as the conclusions of the Public Analyst depend
upon calculations necessarily based on low standards of quality, it is
impossible to report upon samples of this character as adulterated.
Dilution with water and abstraction of fat, are now, as in the past, the
most widely practised and generally recognized forms of milk adulteration;
but many samples are found on analysis to contain variable quantities of
boracic acid, added as a preservative; and the question whether the
addition of boracic acid to milk should not be regarded as an objectionable
practice, and a species of sophistication, is in some quarters rapidly
coming to the front. Observations have been made tending to show that
small doses of boracic acid have an injurious action on the digestive organs,
but there is still difference of opinion in reference to this subject.
Fiom the returns made to the Local Government Board for the year 1890,
it appears that milk no longer retains its former deplorable pre-eminence
as the article of food most subject to adulteration; but the ratio of