Our slaughter-house system : a plea for reform / [C. Cash].

  • Cash, C.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Our slaughter-house system : a plea for reform / [C. Cash]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    109/230 (page 93)
    In many cases the recommendations made were imme- diately acted on. The building of public abattoirs was resolved on, and the resolution carried out without opposition. In the majority of cases, however, stern measures had to be employed before the desired reform could be effected. The method which was found to be the most efficacious consisted in a series of unexpected visits of inspection paid to private slaughter-houses and butchers’ premises at short intervals. In this way abundant evidence was collected as to the existence of abuses. Diseased meat, either whole carcasses or por- tions of carcasses, was seized, and the offending parties, who were guilty of endangering the lives of their fellow- citizens, severely punished. With regard to the structural arrangements of slaughter-houses, the authorities insisted on immediate improvements being made, and passed by-laws necessi- tating thorough and often costly alterations, in some cases going so far as to close, either temporarily or per- manently, premises which were particularly insanitary. As at the same time the municipalities generally put forward the project of building a public abattoir, the butchers in most cases gave up the idea of improving and modernising their existing premises, and joined in the scheme. Thorough and effective reform, however, could not be carried out even by such measures as we have described, until finally the matter was made a subject for legis- lation. This occurred after no great lapse of time in the year 1808, when a law was passed, not only urging the erection of public abattoirs in the interest of the public health, but making their use compulsory when erected. We shall have occasion to thoroughly examine this statute in a subsequent chapter. For the moment we