Abstract

By the end of the nineteenth century the rise of food fraud overlapped with agro-industrial development and with a greater sanitary control of urban spaces troughnew hygiene policies. This article presents the conformation of food fraud and the scientificstructure organized for its management. It explores through governmental, legaland judicial sources, the first decade of the Institute of Hygiene and the arrival of amunicipal mechanism of inspection based on the laboratory, inspectors, and chemists,which complemented the initial work of the Institute, especially in the provinces. Thismechanism positioned the laboratory both, as a prior space of food inspection, and asa relevant instance of certification of food fraud in court