[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Saviour's].

  • St. Saviour's District (London, England). Board of Works.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Saviour's]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: City of London, London Metropolitan Archives

    17/36 (page 17)
    17 PUBLIC ANALYST'S REPORT. TO THE ST. SAVIOUR'S DISTRICT BOARD OF WORKS. Gentlemen, During the past year I have examined 102 articles of food, many of them in duplicate, and in all cases where there was good reason to suspect adulteration. Of Milks, 44 samples have been taken. In the summer they wore of much better quality than in the quarter just passed. The admixture with water then rose from 7 to 22, and even 30 per cent. in two cases. I had hoped that such an amount of adulteration had come to an end; nevertheless we can, on the whole, congratu late ourselves on the great decrease since the working of this act by Mr. Bianchi and myself. Some of these milks were obtained in consequence of a slight adulteration amounting only to five per cent. of added water: the sending our Inspector for a further sample, after the lapse of a little time, generally raises the quality in a wonderful manner. As is nearly always the case with milks that have been tampered with, the addition of water occasions a more or less rapid falling off of the quantity of solids not fat, proving how impossible it is to fix upon any rule for deterioration. Inasmuch as the possibility of conveying disease by unboiled milk is a well-founded fact, it becomes of greater importance than ever that the character of the Condensed Milks should be well ascertained. Three such milks have been analysed, and the results generally bear out the character claimed for them. Only in one specimen did I find a falling off in the cream.