This act shall not affect actions or proceedings, civil or criminal, brought by or against the State Board of Health or the State Department of Health, and pending on the first day of July, one thousand nine hundred and forty-seven, and such actions or proceedings may be prosecuted or defended in the same manner and to the same effect by the State Commissioner of Health as if the foregoing provisions had not taken effect. Nor shall any of the foregoing provisions affect in any manner any order or recommendation made by, or other matters or proceedings before, such State Board of Health or State Department of Health, and all such matters and proceedings pending before such board or department on said date shall be continued before the State Commissioner of Health.
N.J.S. § 26:1A-63