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REPORT OF THE KING INSTITUTE, GU1NDY
APPENDIX II.
REPORT OF MR. HERBERT HAWLEY, M.SC., F.I.C., PUBLIC ANALYST WITH THE
GOVERNMENT OF MADRAS, ON FOOD STANDARDS UNDER THE MADRAS
PREVENTION OF ADULTERATION ACT, 1918.
General.
On my arrival in Madras in January 1924, I was instructed by the Surgeon-General that
I was to work at the King Institute, Guindy, and that my first task would be the carrying
out of such work as I might consider necessary, to enable me to recommend food standards
f or adoption under the Madras Prevention of Adulteration Act, 1918, more especially standards
for milk and milk-products.
I found that the King Institute was not equipped for food-analysis, and that with the
apparatus and chemicals in stock very little could be done. Accordingly I prepared an indent
including such apparatus as I considered essential. Special facilities were given by Govern
-
ment to enable me to get my equipment as quickly as possible, my indent being passed on,
and permission being given for orders to be submitted direct to the firms concerned. Most
of the apparatus and chemicals had arrived by the end of August, and though my laboratory
was only finished in 1925, a certain amount of bench room was found for me, and from that
date a regular supply of samples have been analysed.
While awaiting my equipment, I made a survey of the problem and examined such
published figures as were available in respect to analyses of food-stuffs in India and more
particularly in Madras. The literature on the subject is very scanty. A considerable number
of analyses of buffalo milk are available, and a much smaller number of analyses of cow milk.
There is very little literature indeed as to the composition of butter and the chemical
constants of butter-fat.
It appeared that a considerable number of samples of cow milk would have to be examined,
both during the monsoon and at other seasons, and that butter and butter-fat in Madras would
need to be thoroughly investigated. This has been done, and I am now in a position
to recommend a series of standards for milk and milk-products for official adoption under the
Act.
Before coming to India I had a very considerable experience of the working of the Food
and Drugs Acts in England, first as assistant to the Public Analyst for the Borough of
Portsmouth, then for nine years an assistant to the Public Analyst for the City of Birmin
-
gham, and finally for nearly four years as Public Analyst for the Metropolitan Borough for
Stepney. It is my carefully considered opinion that the Madras Food Adulteration Act is in
some respects faulty and I would suggest that now is the time for the passing of a short
amending Act, so that food adulteration in Madras may be dealt with thoroughly from the
start.
With the Madras Act as it stands, Madras is in the position of England after the passage
of the Food and Drugs Amendment Act of 1899, but it is not in a position to deal with the
sophistication of food-stuffs as it is dealt with in England at the present moment.
The Madras Prevention of Adulteration Act, 1918.*
The Madras Prevention of Adulteration Act, 1918, is based on the English Food and Drugs
Acts, 1875 and 1899. In drafting the Madras Act it appears to me that a very important
consideration has been lost sight of. In England no regulations have been made under the
Food and Drugs Acts since 1902, as it has been found difficult to use these Acts in making
regulations prohibiting or limiting the addition of colouring matters, preservatives or other
substances, however undesirable, where such addition has become a trade custom. Such
regulations are now always made under the Public Health Acts.
The difficulty with the English Food and Drugs Acts, which will arise in connexion
with the Madras Act, which is similarly worded, was that the standards to be prescribed
were only allowed to "raise a presumption until the contrary is proved" that the sample
was not genuine by reason of the fact that it did not subscribe to the official standards. In
* The Act is reprinted in full in Appendix A.
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