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Official Circulars and Notices. 



[dec, 



or unwholesome food. Inspection of articles of food for this purpose has for many 

 years been carried out with satisfactory results by the Port Sanitary Authority in the 

 Port of London, and more recently also in the Port of Manchester. The experience 

 gained in these Ports has been utilised by the Board in preparing these Regulations, 

 which enable action to be taken with regard to unsound food in all port sanitary 

 districts and in all municipal boroughs and urban and rural districts which include or 

 abut on any part of a Customs Port which part is not within the jurisdiction of a Port 

 Sanitary Authority. 



7 he Public Health {Foreign Meat) Regulations, 1908. — The Board have given 

 attention to the danger to public health entailed by the unrestricted importation of 

 certain kinds of meat foods, and to the circumstance that equitable and efficient 

 administration by local authorities in respect of disease and unsoundness in meat may 

 be seriously hampered by such importation. 



The Regulations are designed to deal with foreign boneless meat which is 

 imported in the form of scraps, trimmings, or other pieces not sufficiently identifiable 

 with definite parts of a carcase, and which has not before importation been made 

 ready for human consumption in the form cf a sausage, or of another prepared or 

 manufactured article of food ; with imported tripe, tongues, or kidneys to which 

 certain chemical preservatives have been applied ; and with severed parts of a pig not 

 prepared before importation as bacon or ham, and not contained in a package with an. 

 " official certificate" of the kind referred to below unopened on it or attached to it. 

 These meats are classed together in ihe Regulations as " Foreign Meat of Class I," 

 and unless the importer of meat of this class exports it at his own expense, or furnishes, 

 proof in the manner prescribed by the Regulations, that it is not intended for sale for 

 human consumption, the meat is required to be destroyed. 



With a view to stopping the importation of carcases of pigs from which the 

 lymphatic glands about the throat and elsewhere are absent (thereby preventing the 

 detection of evidence of tuberculosis and other disease in the carcase), the Regulations- 

 provide that carcases of pigs, not prepared as bacon or ham, which are imported 

 without the lymphatic glands, and from which the head has been removed (Foreign 

 Meat of Class II), shall be dealt with in a similar manner to Foreign Meat of 

 Class I. 



Foreign Meat of Class III consists of the severed parts of a pig, not prepared as- 

 bacon or ham, and not being Foreign Meat of Class I, but contained in a package 

 with an " official certificate " attached as evidence that the pig from which the meat 

 is derived has been certified by a competent authority in the place of origin to be free 

 from disease at the time of slaughter, and that the meat has been certified by the like 

 authority to have been dressed or prepared, and packed with the needful observance 

 of all requirements for the prevention of danger arising to public health from the meat 

 as an article of food. After the necessary communications with the responsible 

 authorities of the countries concerned, the Board will take the steps contemplated by 

 Article I {h) of the Regulations to define and publish' the " official certificates " which 

 are to be accepted for this purpose. 



A further object of the Regulations is to provide means by which foreign meat 

 generally which is diseased, unsound, unwholesome, or unfit for human consumption 

 may be detected and dealt with by public health authorities at the place of 

 importation. 



Copies of the Regulations (Statutory Rules and Orders, No. 717 and 718), 

 together with an explanatory Circular Letter, can be obtained from Messrs. Wyman 

 and Sons, Limited, Fetter Lane, E.C. 



