Meat and its inspection : a practical guide for meat inspectors, students, and medical officers of health / by Arthur R. Litteljohn.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Meat and its inspection : a practical guide for meat inspectors, students, and medical officers of health / by Arthur R. Litteljohn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the open market. By this means great loss is saved the producers, and the poorer classes are able to obtain nutritious meat, although of an inferior quality, at much- reduced prices. Statutory Powers governing the Inspection of Meat. It is a crime or misdemeanour to expose for sale, or to possess for the purpose of selling, any food that is unfit for the consumption of man. If death results, it is man- slaughter. Each of our three countries has separate general statutes, as has also the London Metropolis. There are also numerous local Acts. The work of the medical officer of health and his inspec- tors is supervised by the Local Government Board. At the present time the only statutory powers in common use for seizing unwholesome meat are—(1) Public Health Act, 1875, Sections 116-119 ; (2) Public Health (Amend- ment) Act, 1890, Section 28; (3) Public Health (London) Act, 1891, Section 47 ; (4) Public Health (Foreign Meat) Eegulations, 1908. An endeavour will be made in subsequent pages to include all the Acts and Eegulations concerned with the subject of meat inspection. A brief resume only, of the working sections of the more important Acts will here be given. Public Health Act, 1875 (Sections 116-119). Section 116 empowers any M.O.H. or inspector of nuisances at any reasonable time (even Sundays) to examine any carcase, flesh, fish, fruit, vegetables, corn, bread, flour, or milk, exposed for sale for human food, or intended for human food (proof to the contrary resting with the party charged). If any appear diseased, unsound, umvholesovie, or unfit for human food, he may seize it, and carry it, or have an assistant carry it, to a justice for judgment. Section 117.—If the justice believes the food (brought to him according to Section 116) to be unfit for human con-