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.

    42/230 (page 26)
    of meat found to be diseased. Unless so reported, it would be only the barest chance that it could be dis- covered. It follows that it is the honest butcher who has to pay the penalty for his honesty.’ The above extracts are, I think, sufficient to prove the impossibility of efficient meat inspection with the private slaughter-house system. On the necessity for such inspection I need not insist. The subjoined foot- note, describing meat-poisoning epidemics which have periodically occurred, is ample evidence on this point.* I have no intention here of entering into the patho- logical problems involved in a discussion of the varying transmissibility of different diseases of animals to man through the eating of meat. It is sufficient for our pre- sent purpose to recognise that various diseases are so transmitted, and that the boiling, roasting, or pickling of meat affords but an imperfect protection against this transmission. The most serious of these transmissible diseases con- sist of those depending on the existence of animal para- sites, such as trichina and tapeworm; and those of an infectious or toxic nature, such as tuberculosis, glanders, anthrax, rabies, septicaemia, pyaemia, and meat- poisoning. Some of the conditions which render meat unfit for food may be apparent to the buyer. If this were always the case the necessity for a skilled inspector would not exist; but, unfortunately, the most dangerous conditions * In a recent address given by Dr. Geo. Newman. Medical Officer for Finsbury, it was stated that, since the occurrence of the ‘ AVelbeck disease,’ in June, 1880, there have been not less than fifty somewhat similar epidemics of ptomaine-poisoning shown to be due to infection through such food as pork-pies, boiled hams, tinned meats, etc. The outbreak at Mansfield, in 1896, affected 265 persons ; and that at Derby, in 1902, 220 persons. Nor was it alone in epidemic form that ‘ food-poisoning ’ made its appearance. Every year the bills of mortality told a story of deaths from such causes.