[Legal aspects of mineral waters]

The Author takes up the subject of the report in order to carry out a comprehensive legal recognition of the mineral water regulations in Italy and emphasizes that in this field the results of scientific conclusions, or rather of the various scientific branches (medical hydrology, microbiology, chemics, hydrogeology, medical clinics, pharmacology, etc.) supply a cognitive support to the legislator and the substantial contents to the legal standards. He therefore illustrates the two main outlines of the rules, i.e. the hygienic sanitary one and the mineral one: such lay-out is subsequently related to the implementation of the Regions on one hand and to the enforcement of CEE-rules on the other. This has led to the fact that the hygienic-sanitary legislation was confirmed to the State while the mineral one was transferred to the Regions. After having shown up contrasts and expressed the necessity of clearness and uniformity of rules and criteria, the Author connects these requirements mainly with the implementation of hygienic-sanitary surveillance and consequently with the evaluation of the banal bacterical contents under the point of view of merit--i.e. the rules should include the probative results of science--as well as from a point of view of coordinated allotments of competence by the various organisms.