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252
1910]
Butchers' Open Window Stalls-— Inspector Wilkinson in his
report very properly draws attention to the question as to whether the open
shop fronts in the shops of butchers and provision dealers should not be prohibited,
for it is quite true as he states that there is a large quantity of filth
deposited on the food stuffs because of their non-protection from street dust.
The matter becomes of great importance now that we know that such a disease
as Tuberculosis may be, and indeed is, conveyed by such dust. Perhaps in
the case of butchers it is not of so great importance as in that of fruiterers,
for meat is, of course, cooked before it is eaten, and, therefore, the germs of
the disease are most probably destroyed, but the reverse is the case with fruit and
certain vegetables, which are generally eaten raw. Indeed, no person can pass a
fruiterer's shop on a dry, hot, dusty summer's day without noticing the dull
appearance of strawberries, gooseberries, and other fruits offered for sale.
As such fruits are eaten without cooking, it is a matter of the greatest importance
that they should be protected from contamination. The time has,
therefore in the opinion of the Medical Officer of Health, arrived when all
food stuffs, especially those which are eaten in their raw state, should cease
to be sold in open-fronted shops.
The Blowing of Lamb and Veal.—Inspector Wilkinson in his
report alludes to the blowing of lamb and veal by butchers. It is a filthy and
obnoxious practice, and has been alluded to by the Medical Officer of Health
in some of his previous annual reports, notably in 1904 and 1905, and should
not be tolerated by the public.
If the blowing be done by a human being, then if there be anything the
matter with him, the germs of the disease from which he may happen to be
suffering may be carried into the very centre of the joints of meat. The man
to whom the inspector alludes in his report had been in the employment of two
butchers, and had had the duty cast on him of blowing the meat This man
was suffering from tuberculosis of the lungs, from which he subsequently died.
A state of affairs that permits this to occur is radically wrong, and should not
be allowed to continue for a moment, and yet year after year passes by and the
legislature takes no action. It is not only wrong for a human being to blow
meat with his lungs, but it is also wrong to do so by mechanical means, because
the operation, effected in the polluted air of the slaughterhouse, drives this air
into the meat, and, therefore, renders it liable to very speedy decomposition.