Abstract
THE consideration of the circumstances which occasioned the epidemic of arsenical poisoning in the latter part of 1900, arising from the consumption of beer brewed from materials which were subsequently proved to contain large quantities of arsenic, and of the facts which resulted from their inquiry into the conditions under which other articles of food are actually prepared on a manufacturing scale, has led the Commissioners to direct attention to the extremely limited official control possessed by local authorities who are charged with the administration of the Acts relating to public health and the sale of food over the operations of manufacturers. The Commissioners point out that the existing machinery of public health administration provides little, if any, system of official control over the proceedings of manufacturers of food or of food ingredients. An individual or a company may start the manufacture of some new composition of food, to be sold under a “fancy” name, but there is no obligation to satisfy the local or any other public authority that the composition or the ingredients are wholesome, or that the conditions of preparation preclude the possibility of contamination by deleterious substances. The sanitary authorities of certain districts have obtained powers, under local Acts, to supervise the conditions of manufacture of ice-cream, but the principle is of extremely limited application in effect, and, broadly speaking, the control which can be exercised becomes available only after the food is on sale to the public. But even then the power possessed by the local authority under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts is extremely circumscribed. Section 3 of the 1875 Act was drawn with the object of preventing adulteration of food with substances injurious to health, but it is so worded that it is almost impossible to obtain convictions under it, and as a consequence local authorities seldom proceed under it. A notable illustration of the impotence of the section was seen in the cases of prosecutions against publicans for selling arsenicated beer, where the proceeding were almost invariably laid under Section 6. Most persons are agreed that arsenic is a deleterious substance, but it was much easier to convict the publican of selling beer to the prejudice of the purchaser which was not of the nature, substance, or quality demanded than of selling beer containing a poisonous ingredient, to wit, arsenic. The irony of the situation is accentuated by the fact that wihereas the fines under Section 3 have some relation to the gravity of the offence, and are sufficiently large to be deterrent, under Section 6, which was aimed at an entirely different class, they may be, and frequently are, whclly trivial.
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The Food and Drugs Acts 1 . Nature 69, 201–203 (1903). https://doi.org/10.1038/069201a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/069201a0