[Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicester Borough.

  • Leicester (England). Borough Council.
Date:
1955
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1955] / Medical Officer of Health, Leicester Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    149/220 (page 139)
    Chocolate bars (S.299), infected with the grubs of the beetle, Stego- bium paniceum (L) were submitted. The manufacturer established that the bar was made upon the 14th of February, 1955, and was out of their control by the end of May, 1955, and were therefore able to prove that infection took place subsequent to the bar leaving their control. The vendor’s premises were visited, and stock replaced. Dried Full Cream (Modified) Milk, S.255 and S.256 These samples, submitted privately, were found to be damp and infected with a green mould. They were condemned as unfit for human consumption. FERMENTATION IN FOOD SAMPLES The disappearance of sucrose from samples of ice cream is well known ; a form of fermentation occurs with the result that the sugar disappears from the system as volatile products, unless the sample is refrigerated at 0°F. If there is any delay in analysis a similar phenomen occurs in the disappearance of the starchy filler from samples of sausages. Invariably, the analysis made by the Government Chemist (which usually takes place on a sample that has turned mouldy with age) gives a higher figure for meat content than the original analysis. A third variant of this phenomenon, not encountered before in this area, came to light when a sample of stoned raisons, submitted by the Weights and Measures Inspector as being 25 per cent deficient of its proper weight, was sent in for analysis. The vendor had made the usual excuse that the loss of weight was due to evaporation during storage in a dry place. In actual fact we found the moisture content to be normal. The sample had a vinous smell and was highly infected with yeast cells, and the low figure for sugar and correspondingly high figure for mineral matter, insoluble tissue, etc., corresponded to the actual loss of about 20 per cent of the original weight in the form of sugar. The vendor was fined £5 for exposing 15 underweight packets of raisins for sale, prosecution under the Food and Drugs Act for the sale of a commodity not of the “substance, nature or quality demanded” was not pursued. DRUG SAMPLES The summary of drug samples submitted to the Department during 1955 is indicated in Table B ; 198 samples were received, of which 12