[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, Borough of].

  • Southwark (London, England). Metropolitan Borough.
Date:
[1906?]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, Borough of]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    139 TABLE 55. Showing the number of samples of Foodstuffs taken in each Ward during 1905, and the number of such samples found to be unsound. Ward. Number of Samples taken. Number found to be sound. Number found to be unsound. St. Mary 27 26 1 St. Paul 765 763 2 St Peter 76 60 16 St. John 76 65 11 Trinity 91 81 10 All Saints 73 66 7 St. Michael 79 68 11 St. Jude 213 198 15 St. George 78 63 15 Christchurch 286 280 6 St. Saviour 3510 3048 462 Total for Borough 5274 4718 556 Damaged Coffee and Cocoa. Information was received on January 2nd from the Medical Officer of Health of the Port of London that 20,000 bags of coffee and 2,150 bags of cocoa damaged by river water had been removed from the sunken S.S. Caravellas which had been in collision with another steamer at a spot in the Thames two miles below Greenwich, and that the coffee and cocoa were to be landed at the West Kent Wharf. Samples of the coffee were taken and roasted, and an infusion made. It was considered that the high temperature of roasting had completely destroyed all sewage contamination, and that the coffee when roasted would be sound and fit for human food. Some portion of this cargo had been landed in Bermondsey, and there seized and samples taken before a Magistrate. It was decided by the Magistrate that the coffee had been rightly seized and was unsound in its raw state, but that it was in a state of being prepared for sale, which state was not completed until after the process of roasting had taken place. The Magistrate further stated that when the coffee was roasted he considered that it would be sound and fit for human food. He therefore refused to condemn it. In the case of the cocoa, which was roasted and prepared, no more objection could be taken to it than with the case of the coffee. A summons had been previously carried out before the Magistrate for its condemnation, but, after the decision in the Bermondsey seizure, it was withdrawn and the cocoa allowed to be removed for sale. At market the cocoa and coffee fetched very nearly the usual prices paid for such articles.