Cities and Towns to which Notices were sent on Account of Adulterated Articles of Food other than Milk.

Cities and Towns to which Notices were sent on Account of Adulterated Drugs.

In the reports of the last four years a condensed summary was presented, showing the number of prosecutions conducted in each year since the beginning of work under the food and drugs acts. The following table presents the same figures, with the addition of those for the year ending Sept. 30, 1896:

Ratio of convictions to complaints, 91.4 per cent.

NOTE. All complaints entered before May 1, 1886, were under the direction of the Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity, and all after that date were under the direction of the State Board of Health.

The following report was presented to the Legislature in January, 1897, in compliance with the provisions of the statutes:—

OFFICE OF THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH,

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, Jan. 1, 1897.

To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in General Court assembled.

The following summary is made in compliance with the provisions of chapter 289, section 2, of the Acts of 1884, requiring the State Board of Health to "report annually to the Legislature the number of prosecutions made under chapter 263 of the Acts of 1882, and an itemized account of all money expended in carrying out the provisions thereof."

The whole number of prosecutions made by authority of the Board against offenders, under the provisions of the food and drug acts, for the year ending Sept. 30, 1896, was 75.

The cities and towns in which the articles were sold, and in respect to which complaints were entered in court, the character of the articles found to be adulterated, or fraudulently sold, the dates of the trials, and their results, are presented in the following table :

SUMMARY.

Complaints entered in court under the acts relating to the inspection of milk

The whole number of complaints entered by the State Board of Health during the year ending Sept. 30, 1896, in the courts of the Commonwealth, against parties for violation of the statutes relating to food and drug inspection, was 75.

In 74, or 98.7 per cent., of these the parties were convicted. One was discharged in the municipal court.

Of the whole number, 68 were for violation of the laws relating to milk adulteration, and of this number 67 resulted in conviction. The greater number of these was for violation of the statute providing that milk offered for sale shall be of good standard quality. In 10 of the foregoing cases the complaints were for sales of milk containing coloring matter.

The attention of the Legislature is again respectfully called to the provisions of chapter 425 of the Acts of 1894, which debars any private citizen from maintaining an action against a producer for selling adulterated milk.

Attention is also respectfully called to the provisions of section 23 of chapter 397 of the Acts of 1896, by which the people are now deprived of any legal protection against the harmful action of poisonous patent medicines.

All of the 7 parties against whom complaints were entered for fraudulent sales of other kinds of food were convicted.

The articles of food with reference to which these complaints were made were as follows:

Maple sugar, 4 cases; maple syrup, 1 case; molasses, 1 case; cream of tartar, 1 case.

The following statute, as amended in 1896 (chapter 398), presents the standard of milk in Massachusetts at the date of publishing this report:

[CHAPTER 398, SECTION 2, ACTS OF 1896.]

In all prosecutions under this chapter, if the milk is shown upon analysis to contain less than thirteen per cent. of milk solids, or to contain less