SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS ACTS. 25 



IMPORTANT SECTIONS OF THE ACT. 



The great bulk of prosecutions in Great Britain under the sale of 

 food and drugs acts, 1875-1899, occur under sections 3 to 9, inclusive. 

 These sections are found in the 1875 act and the ones not modified in 

 the act of 1899 are as follows: 



3. Mixing injurious ingredients with food. No person shall mix, colour, stain, or 

 powder, or order or permit any other person to mix, colour, stain, or powder any article 

 of food with any ingredient or material so as to render the article injurious to health, 

 with intent that the same may be sold in that state, and no person shall sell any such 

 article so mixed, coloured, stained, or powdered, under a penalty in each case not 

 exceeding fifty pounds for the first offence; every offence, after a conviction for a first 

 offence, shall be a misdemeanor, for which the person on conviction, shall be impris- 

 oned for a period not exceeding six months with hard labor. 



4. Mixing drugs with injurious ingredients. No person shall, except for the purpose 

 of compounding as hereinafter described, mix, colour, stain, or powder, or order or per- 

 mit any other person to mix, colour, stain, or powder, any drug with any ingredient 

 or material so as to affect injuriously the quality or potency of such a drug, with 

 intent that the same may be sold in that state, and no person shall sell any such drug 

 so mixed, coloured, stained, or powdered, under the same penalty in each case respec- 

 tively as in the preceding section for a first and subsequent offence. 



5. Proof of absence of knowledge. Provided that no person shall be liable to be 

 convicted under either of the two last foregoing sections of this Act in respect of the 

 sale of any article of food, or of any drug, if he shows to the satisfaction of the justice or 

 court before whom he is charged that he did not know of the article of food or drug 

 sold by him being so mixed, coloured, stained, or powdered as in either of these 

 sections mentioned, and that he could not with reasonable diligence have obtained 

 that knowledge. 



6. Sale of articles of food and of drugs not of the proper nature, substance, and quality. 

 No person shall sell to the prejudice of the purchaser any article of food or any drug 

 which is not of the nature, substance, and quality, of the article demanded, by such 

 purchaser, under a penalty, not exceeding twenty pounds; Provided that an offence 

 shall not be deemed to be committed under this section in the following cases; that is 

 to say 



(1) Where any matter of ingredient not injurious to health has been added to the 

 food or drug because the same is required for the production or preparation thereof 

 as an article of commerce, in a state fit for carriage or consumption, and not fraudu- 

 lently to increase the bulk, weight, or measure of the food or drug, or conceal the 

 inferior quality thereof; 



(2) Where the drug or food is a proprietary medicine or is the subject of a patent in 

 force, and is supplied in the state required by the specification of the patent; 



(3) Where the food or drug is compounded as in this Act mentioned ; 



(4) Where the food or drug is unavoidably mixed with some extraneous matter in 

 the process of collection or preparation. 



7. Compound articles of food and compounded drugs. No person shall sell any com- 

 pound article of food or compounded drug which is not composed of ingredients in 

 accordance with the demand of the purchaser, under a penalty not exceeding twenty 

 pounds. 



8. Protection from offences by giving label. Provided that no person shall be guilty 

 of any such offence as aforesaid in respect of the sale of an article of food or a drug 

 mixed with any matter or ingredient not injurious to health, and not intended fraudu- 

 lently to increase its bulk, weight, or measure, or conceal its inferior quality, if at the 

 tune of delivering such article or drug he shall supply to the person receiving the same 



