252 CHAPTER XIV, Food Adulteration. Adulteration of Foods Acts have been passed in only one or two provinces, but these Acts are applicable to municipal areas, only if the municipal councils concerned agree to their adoption. We believe that such Acts should bein force in every province and that local Governments should endeavour to make their provisions more widely applicable. At present the lack of adequate standards of purity make it only too easy for merchants to sell adulterated food supplies. Milk, ghz and butter, all valuable foods when pure, are thus abused to an incredible extent, and the ordinary purchaser is left unprotected. Without legis- lation for the fixing of standards it is almost impossible to obtain a con- viction for adulteration, and severe penalties should be laid down for offences of this nature. In addition a clause regulating the importation and sale of condensed skimmed milk, large quantities of which are sold to working-class mothers as food fit for infants. should if possible be incorporated in them. Industrial Hygiene. Although individual research workers have been able to throw gleams of light on certain aspects of disease, there remain unexplored wide regions, particularly in the industrial field. In the more industria- lised provinces Public Health Departments should be strengthened to deal with industrial hygiene and industrial disease. At least one of the Assistant Directors of Public Health should have a special knowledge of these subjects and be capable of advising industrial employers on matters affecting the health of their workers and of carrying out special investi- gations in the industrial field. Little work has so far been done in India in this branch of preventive medicine, and we heard with regret that the one attempt made to organise such a branch in the Bengal Public Health Department was abandoned within six months on account of retrench- ment. In this connection the Public Health Commissioner with the Government of India has emphasised the necessity for the creation of a central bureau or a division of industrial hygiene in any development of the central health organisation of the future. Industrial Disease. Although the majority of witnesses assured us that industrial disease was seldom brought to their notice, we are satisfied that further investigation is necessary. We anticipate that here, as in other coun- tries, when skilled observers are set to work, the usual diseases associated with industry will be found to exist, their non-detection possibly being due to the fact that they are either never seen by a medical man or, if seen, pass unrecognised and undetected. It is difficult to believe, for instance, that cases of anthrax never occur among workers in leather, hides and skins when the anthrax bacillus has not infrequently been found in tanneries and in parcels of hides prepared for export. In another chap- ter we suggest additions to the list of industrial diseases scheduled