Book Description

By the year 1850 the rapid expansion of British domestic trade in consumer goods was creating new problems for the legislature and demanding new solutions. Stricter government control was urgently required particularly over trade in food, drinks and substances, then loosely referred to as drugs. The first major inquiries came between the years 1852 and 1857 and were responsible for new and updated legislation on the adulteration of foods, drinks and drugs, on the control of the pharmacy trade and on the sale of poisons. The Select Committee Report of 1874 on food adulteration was highly influential and a great body of legislation appeared on the subject. -- Publisher's catalogue.