PART 1.-Articles of Food Which May Contain Preservative and Nature and Proportion of Preservative in Each Case:— The articles of food specified in the first column of the following table may contain the preservative specified in the second column in proportions not exceeding the number of parts (estimated by weight) per million specified in the third column:— food products. Each State has complete control of the foods duced and consumed within that State. The Federal Government has control of foods shipped into interstate or foreign commerce.
The Federal Food and Drugs act, approved on June 3o, 1906, and amended in 1912, 1913 and 1919, provides in general that all foods coming within its jurisdiction be prepared in a cleanly manner from pure and wholesome materials ; free from any added substances which might render them injurious to health; not la belled or sold under representations which are in any manner de ceptive. Food packages must bear a plain and conspicuous state ment of the quantity of the contents.
The Meat Inspection act, approved on June 3o, 1906, provides that every establishment in which cattle, sheep, swine or goats are slaughtered or their carcasses are wholly or in part canned, cured, smoked, salted, packed, rendered or otherwise prepared for transportation or sale as articles of interstate or foreign com merce, shall be inspected under the act. The inspection begins when live animals are received for slaughter, and includes a thor ough ante-mortem and post-mortem examination, a rigid inspec tion of products such as smoked or cured meats, lard and by products, and a final inspection when meats and their products leave the inspected establishments.
The Tea Inspection act of March 2, 1897, amended on May 16, 1908, provides that all shipments of tea offered for entry into the United States shall be inspected to see that they comply with the standards of quality and purity adopted each year by a board of tea experts appointed by the secretary of agriculture. Every consignment of tea offered for entry into the United States is inspected, and only such tea admitted as complies with the standards.
The department of agriculture in the enforcement of the Fed eral Food and Drugs act endeavours to see that out of the great volume and variety of foods coming from other countries only such as comply with the act are allowed to enter the United States. Shipments in violation of the Food and Drugs act are denied entry into the United States, and if not exported within three months are destroyed. If the violation is a form of misbranding that can be entirely corrected by relabelling, the importer is per mitted to relabel the shipment, after which it may be admitted to the country, if the relabelling is correct. Foods that are harmful to health, however, are not admitted to the United States and must be exported or destroyed.
For the control of interstate commerce two forms of action are provided by the Federal Food and Drugs act—criminal prosecu tion against the party responsible for the violation, and seizure of any shipments of adulterated or misbranded foods or drugs found in interstate or foreign commerce. Both actions may be invoked when necessary. Under the Federal Food and Drugs act more than 14,000 cases, including both criminal prosecutions and seiz ures, have been terminated in the Federal courts and the results published in the form of notices of judgment. This number rep resents only those instances of flagrant misbranding or adultera tion in which court action was necessary to check the practice. Countless minor violations have been corrected by serving notices on the firms responsible without recourse to formal legal action.
Most of the grosser forms of adulteration and misbranding which prevailed at the time of the enactment of the Federal Food and Drugs act and Meat Inspection act in 1906 have been elim inated as general trade practices. Occasional sporadic instances on the part of widely scattered dealers to adulterate and mis brand in the old way are still detected at intervals; but such practices are no longer general. New and more subtle forms of adulteration, however, are being detected. As a result of the effects of pure food legislation by the Federal and State Govern ments, and by the application of the principles of sanitary science in the food industries, very great improvement was made in the purity of food in the markets of the United States between 1910 and 1925. No other classes of merchandise are to-day, on the whole, so free from adulteration and misbranding as foods.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-H. A. MacEwan, Food Inspection (3rd ed. 1922) ; Bibliography.-H. A. MacEwan, Food Inspection (3rd ed. 1922) ; G. R. Leighton, Botulism and Food Preservation (1923) and Pocket Handbook of Meat Inspection. A Guide to the Public Health—Meat Regulations—Scotland, 1924 (1924) ; W. G. Savage, Canned Foods in Relation to Health (Milroy Lectures, 1923) ; G. W. M. Williams, Chemistry in Relation to Food (1924) ; A. G. Woodman, Food Analysis (2nd ed. 1924) ; R. Edelmann, Text-book of Heat Hygiene (5th ed. 1925) ; A. E. Leach and A. L. Winton, Food Inspection and Analysis (4th ed. 192o) ; H. W. Wiley, Foods and their Adulteration (3rd ed., Philadelphia, H. C. Sherman, Food Products (2nd ed. 1924) ; C. Thom and A. C. Hunter, Hygienic Fundamentals of Food Handling (Baltimore, 1924). See also the following British Government publica tions: Ministry of Health: Final Report of the Departmental Com mittee on the use of preservatives and colouring matters in food (1924) ; Draft Rules and Orders, 1925, Public Health, England: Draft of the Public Health (preservatives, etc., in food) Regulations (1925); Draft Rules and Orders, 1925, Public Health, Scotland: Draft of Regulations with respect to Preservatives, etc., in Food, proposed by the Scottish Board of Health (1925). (C. A. B.)