BELOW STRENGTH

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 115, 5 August 1927, Page 13

BELOW STRENGTH

SALE OF LIMEWATER HAMILTON CHEMIST FINED (From Our Own Correspo7ident.) HAMILTON, To-day. Two interesting cases were heard in the Magistrate's Court to-day, when the United Friendly Societies’ Dispensary and Joseph H. Boyd were both defendants. Practising as chemists in Hamilton, they were charged with selling limewater not up to the required strength. In the case of the former defendant the analysis test had disclosed .9 millimetres of sulphuric acid, sufficient to neutralise the solution, the lime deficiency being 91 per cent., and the limewater was practically useless for the purpose for which it was intended. The defence was that the article was really a saturated solution of lime in distilled water, and not prepared with any great degree of exactitude. His Worship: That surely is an element which should be absent from a dispensary. Counsel added that the article was absolutely innocuous and a small sale price was no inducement to chemists to defraud the public. The magistrate fined defendant 40s. remarking that carelessness was strongly to be deprecated in a chemist’s shop. Tlio deficiency of lime in the solution prepared on Joseph H. Boyd’s premises was 43 per cent. The only explanation offered was that manufacturnig methods * were strictly adhered to, but the access of air might have reduced the strength of the solutions. A fine of 20s was imposed.