Foods, their composition and analysis : a manual for the use of analytical chemists and others : with an introductory essay on the history of adulteration / by Alexander Wynter Blyth.

Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foods, their composition and analysis : a manual for the use of analytical chemists and others : with an introductory essay on the history of adulteration / by Alexander Wynter Blyth. 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.

    88/674 (page 54)
    54r “ sucli sum as may be agreed upon between such person and the analyst.” In either case, the analyst must give a certificate of his results to the purchaser. The purchaser must also purchase the ai-ticle in the manner directed in Section 14, as will be shortly detailed. It is evident that, for legal purposes, the official analyst must be employed, and that under the Act no prosecution can be under- taken except on his certificate. Thus, at the Manchester Police Court, the Milk-Dealers’ Protection Society attempted to prose- cute on the certificate of a private analyst, but on this technical ground alone the magistrate dismissed the case.* The author believes that when a purchaser comes to a public analyst with a sample of food, and desires its analysis under the 1 Act, the analyst must assume that the conditions of the purchase under the foui’teenth section have been complied with, and cannot refuse to analyse it; on the other hand, if he is expressly informed that the provisions have not been carried out, and moreover that, whatever his certificate may be, there is no intention of proceeding further, then the analyst may refuse to analyse the substance, under the Act, and the question of analysis will be a matter of private arrangement between the purchaser and the analyst; the spirit of the Act being to prevent fraud—not to encourage curiosity. § 45. The thirteenth section of the old Act and the third section of the amended Act should be read together :— “ Any medical officer of health, inspector of nuisances, or 1 inspector of weights and measures, or any inspector of a market, I or any police-constable under the direction and at the cost of the I local authority appointing such officer, inspector, or constable, or charged with the execution of this Act, may procure any sample e of food or drugs, and if he suspect the same to have been sold to I him contrary to any provision of this Act, shall submit the same to be analysed by the analyst of the district or place for which he acts ; or if there be no such analyst then acting for such place, ] t to the analyst of another place, and sucli analyst shall, upon a receiving payment as is provided in the last section, with all a convenient speed, analyse the same and give a certificate to such officer, wherein he shall specify the result of the analysis.” By Section 3 of the amended Act the same individuals “ may procure at the place of delivery any sample of any milk in course i of delivery to the purchaser or consignee, in pursuance of any contract for the sale to such purchaser or consignee of such milk.” Section 4 of the same Act provides a penalty for refusal to I Analyst, 1879, vol. iv., p. 74.