London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Paddington 1856

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington]

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17
This kind of adulteration is not the less important in its
relations to public health, because it does not consist in the
addition of any deleterious substance foreign to the composition
of pure milk. It cannot be too frequently repeated, that
if we are to lengthen the lives of the people generally, it must
be done for the most part by obviating those causes of disease
which press so heavily upon infancy. The chief of these
causes, as I have already endeavoured to point out, is deficient
nourishment. If this be admitted, it must follow that the man
who sells as pure milk a liquid which contains only a quarter
of the prop proportion of solid nutriment, is not only guilty
of robbing the poor, but is engaged in a practice which is
much more hurtful to the community than the addition even
of poisonous ingredients to articles of food which are mere
luxuries, e. g. pickles, confectionery, &c.
BREAD.
In pursuance of the same investigation, 17 specimens of
bread and flour, supplied by various bakers in the Parish, were
analysed. The results were on the whole favourable, being
such as to acquit most of the bakers whose bread was tested
of the charge of culpable adulteration.

TABLE showing the Composition of various Specimens of Paddington Milk as compared with Pure Milk.

Solids.Water.Solids.Water.
Pure Milk12.9887.02178.191.9
113.286.8188.0291.98
212.587.5197.992.1
312.088.0206.593.5
411.988.1216.293.8
511.688.4236.293.8
611.588.5236.293.8
711.388.7245.894.2
811 089.0255.894.2
910. 489.6265.494. 6
1010.489.6275.394.7
1110.489.6285.095.0
1210.289.8294.595.5
1310.090.0303.7796.23
1410.090.0313 .7596.25
159.890.2323.596.5
169.091.0

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