Of thirty samples of oatmeal examined by the ‘Lancet Sanitary Commissioner,’ no fewer than sixteen samples, or more than one half, were adulterated. The substance generally used for this purpose is barley meal, which is
only half the price of oatmeal. Husks of barley, wheat, and of the oat itself, are also frequently used. Rice and maize are also sometimes added. That supplied to the army, navy, and the workhouses, was very commonly adulterated with whiting, plaster of Paris, or ground bones. The mineral sophisticant may be detected by the excess of ash, which should not exceed 2·36 per cent. These frauds are readily detected by the microscope.
Grits or Groats are the decorticated grain of the oat, which when bruised or crushed constitute Embden groats. Flummery (known in Scotland as sowans) is made by steeping the husks of the grain in water, until they become slightly sour, the strained liquid being boiled down to the consistence of gruel. Oatmeal soon becomes sour and rancid. It should be purchased at such shops as have a quick sale for it. See Acari, Stir-about.
OBE′′SITY. Syn. Obesitas, Polysarca, L. Unhealthy or troublesome fatness or corpulency. Sometimes the secretion of fat, and its accumulation in the adipose membrane, is almost as rapid as that of water in anasarca; on which account some of the old writers have called obesity a dropsy of fat. Persons in easy circumstances, of indolent habits, who live freely, and who are of a cheerful and contented deposition, are those most liable to obesity. The treatment consists in the very gradual reduction of the diet, until it falls rather below the average quantity required by a healthy adult; the very gradual disuse of fermented liquors, more especially beer; the gradual abridgment of the time devoted to repose, until it does not exceed 5 or 6 hours; the employment of several hours daily in exercise in the open air, at first moderate, but increased day by day in energy, until it becomes laborious; and, lastly, arousing the mind from a state of lethargy to one of active or even harassing employment.
In some cases the accumulation of fat has been enormous. Bright, of Maldon, weighed 728 lbs.; Daniel Lambert, of Leicester, 739 lbs.; a girl, 4 years old, noticed in the ‘Phil. Trans.,’ 1813, weighed 256 lbs.
Persons affected with obesity are generally short-lived.
OBSTRUCTION OF LOCAL AUTHORITY. Various penalties are mentioned in different sections of the Public Health Act for the offence of obstructing officers, &c., representing the local authority, in carrying out the Act. The following section, which we select, deals with the subject generally:—
Sec. 306. “Any person who wilfully obstructs any member of the local authority, or any person duly employed in the execution of this Act, or who destroys, pulls down, injures, or defaces any board on which any bye-law, notice, or other matter is inscribed, shall, if the same was put up by authority of the Local Government Board or of
the local authority, be liable for every such offence to a penalty not exceeding £5.
“Where the occupier of any premises prevents the owner thereof from obeying or carrying into effect any of the provisions of this Act, any justice, to whom application is made in this behalf, shall by order in writing require such occupier to permit the execution of any works required to be executed, provided that the same appear to such justice to be necessary for the purpose of obeying or carrying into effect the provisions of this Act; and if within 24 hours after the making of the order such occupier fails to comply therewith, he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding £5 for every day during the continuance of such non-compliance.