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existence. There is satisfactory evidence that under all circumstances of
weather and temperature fresh milk can supplied to London by the country.
Such milk is also more nutritious and wholesome than that of cows living in
close sheds in the centre of the town.
The slaughter-houses have also been examined on several occasions.
They have been kept fairly clean and several little improvements have been
made in them. Still the substitution ot the public abattoir for the private
slaughter-house remains a great sanitary necessity.
In the course of the year, a circular was addressed to the Medical Officers
of Health by Dr. Lethkby, asking for their opinion on certain measures
which he had advised to the sanitary authorities of the City of London for
checking the consumption of diseased meat. He proposed to instruct the
Inspectors of Markets to seize meat of the following descriptions as unfit for
human food, viz:— (1) The meat of animals slaughtered in a state of acute
inflammatory disease; (2) The meat of animr.ls that have wasted from
lingering disease; (3) The meat of all animals that have died of disease or
accident or other cause than that of the butcher.
On these propositions, it may be observed that no one would wish
inferior meat to be consumed if the question were only between it and better
meat. And it would be hiphly desirable to draw a line between first-class and
inferior meat. But the alternative put before the poor man by these large
regulations, would appear to be whether he shall eat inferior meat or none at
all. By advancing the price of meat so as to condemn the poor to vegetable
food, their capabilities of work are lessened, and they are unfitted for resisting
disease. It is important therefore not to condemn meat of whose unwholesomeness
there is not bona Jide evidence. In respect of some few diseases
affecting animals this evidence exists ; for example, measles in the pig, and
malignant carbuncle in the ox. On the other hand, there is no proof that harm
can arise from eating the flesh of animals suffering from tubercular deposit in
their lungs. A vast number of creatures daily slaughtered in London,
probably a really large proportion of them, present an early stage of such
deposit and they would be condemned by Dr. Letheby's second rule.
What is wanted is not a general measure of confiscation on our present
imperfect knowledge, but a system of inspection by which animals should be
condemned if they are found affected with diseases known to give an injurious
quality to their meat. Hereby fresh information could be gathered as to the
connexion between the meat of unsound animals and disease in the human
subject. By due arrangements this inspection might be contrived to give a
guarantee of the healthiness of all animals from which meat of the first-class
is supplied, leaving the meat of inferior or unsound animals, when it is not
demonstrably unwholesome, for the consumption of those who cannot afford to
pay for such a guarantee.
But no such inspection can be got under the present plan of slaughtering.
It can only be obtained at central abattoirs under the controul of the sanitary
authorities. This is only one, though a chief, ground for desiring such
establishments. Against them is only to be urged the convenience of butchers
and the alleged difficulty of relying on the honesty of journeymen when out
of their masters' sight.
GEORGE BUCHANAN.
75, Gower Street,
June, 1862.