British Food Journal Volume 49 Issue 9 1947

We have pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the Public Health Authorities of the State of Queensland, Australia, for sending us this record. Want of space compels briefness, but we hope that the few points to which we have drawn notice may prove of interest to readers. We are concerned with the work of the Government Chemical Laboratory and local authorities so far as that relates to the purity, storage, and handling of the food supply. Action is taken under the Food and Drug sections of the Health Acts, and Regulations connected therewith. The difficulties naturally arising in the administration of a vast and sparsely populated tropical territory have been increased, there as here, by shortage of labour and materials of all kinds. So that schemes devised by local authorities in the interests of public health have in many instances been seriously delayed. The Chief of the Government Chemical Laboratory remarks that the Department has worked under incessant pressure for many years. “ The well informed, versatile and competent practitioners ” demanded by the service are not at present available outside the Government service, and “ unless they are forthcoming from time to time to rejuvenate the staff the laboratory may be reduced to a laboratory of professional labourers.”