Specification of James Carson : slaughtering animals.

  • Carson, James.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specification of James Carson : slaughtering animals. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    9 Carsons Neiv Mode of Slaughtering Animals intended for Human Food. The physiological principle upon which it is founded, is that a power of great and extensive use to animal life, is derived from the stretch in which the lungs are held, both in the living and recently dead animal in opposition to their elasticity. In consequence of this power existing after death while the antagonist and controlling power derived from irritability was destroyed with 5 life, the blood and the contents of the lymphatic and lacteal systems are nearly all drained from the arteries and small veins of the larger circulation, and from the lymphatics and lacteals of the parts traversed by that circulation into the blood vessels of the viscera within the chest and into the roots of the larger veins approaching to it. I ^ The object of the mode of slaughtering, which constitutes my said Invention, is to remove the impediments which nature has set up against the elasticity of the lungs, on the existence of which impediments life in a great measure depends, and of course to allow the lungs to resiliate into their natural dimensions, or in other words, to collapse while the animal is still alive; the 15 effect of this method of slaughtering is, to retain the lymphatic and lacteal fluids, and indeed all the finer juices of the body at any point in the same proportion in which they existed while the animal was still alive, instead of being accumulated in the large vessels and discharged out of the body in a mass and becoming a nuisance. It is necessary for the full accomplishment of the object aimed at by this method of slaughtering, that a pressure at least equal to that of the atmo¬ sphere, shall be made to rest upon the external surface of the lungs, and of the other viscera within the chest, from which surfaces a part of that pressure is removed during life, and for a considerable time after the death of the animal 25 by the elasticity of the lungs. This object is accomplished by a fi*ee, sufficiently abundant and uninterrupted admission of air into both of the cavities formed by the membrane lining the chest, and that forming the external covering of the lungs, a pressure at least equal to that of the atmosphere being thus brought to rest upon the external surfaces of the organs contained by the chest; the 30 lungs in obedience to their structure collapse when the animal in this situation attempts to inspire and expands the chest, the air required to occupy the in¬ creased dimensions instead of entering through the windpipe, in which direction it has to encounter the disengaged elasticity of the lungs, is admitted through other passages, provided in the manner about to be described. The transmission 35 of air through the windpipe, in other words, breathing, is impracticable, and as none of the viscera of the chest will be relieved from any portion of the atmospherical pressure, all suction or draining of the fluids towards the chest is prevented, however extensive that expansion may be ; and in further com-