Sale of Food and Drugs Act 1875

Description of Offences

3Prohibition of the mixing of injurious ingredients, and of selling the same

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 imprisoned for a period not exceeding six months with hard labour.

4Prohibition of the mixing of drags with injurious ingredients, and of selling the same

No person shall, except for the purpose of compounding as herein-after described, mix, colour, stain, or powder, or order or permit 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 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 respectively as in the preceding section for a first and subsequent offence.

5Exemption in case of 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 those sections mentioned, and that he could not with reasonable diligence have obtained that knowledge.

6Prohibition of the 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 or 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 fraudulently 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.

7Provision for the sale of compounded articles of food and compounded drugs

No person shall sell any compound 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.

8Protection from offences by giving of 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 fraudulently to increase its bulk, weight, or measure, or conceal its inferior quality, if at the time of delivering such article or drug he shall supply to the person receiving the same a notice, by a label distinctly and legibly written or printed on or with the article or drug, to the effect that the same is mixed.

9Prohibition of the abstraction of any part of an article of food before sale, and selling without notice

No person shall, with the intent that the same may be sold in its altered state without notice, abstract from an article of food any part of it so as to affect injuriously its quality, substance, or nature, and no person shall sell any article so altered without making disclosure of the alteration, under a penalty in each case not exceeding twenty pounds.