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an epidemic form, and the coming spring and summer will aggravatevery
materially the existing evils.
In addition to the evils from the above-mentioned sources, the atmosphere
is here tainted by a considerable accumulation of ashes and house
refuse. The inhabitants complain that the dust carts, when they come,
pass their doors at six o'clock in the morning. In some instances there
are the accumulations of some weeks.
I have on former occasions reported to the vestry proceedings taken
to check and put a stop to the sale of diseased meat. This important
and responsible part of the duty devolving on your officer of health I
bear constantly in my mind. There are some difficulties in carrying
out fully the wise intentions of the Legislature, in the very wholesome
enactment in the Metropolitan Management Act, on this generally vital
interesting subject. From my first entrance upon the duties I have
paid earnest and constant attention to physical and general characters
of meat in a diseased or unwholesome condition, intended for human
food, and I can now speak with confidence where formerly I should
have had doubts, which would have prevented my taking prompt and
active measures, such as the following:—
I visited the premises of a carcase butcher in the Leather Market
district (your inspector accompanied me), on Thursday afternoon, the
17th instant, and in the front shop there was a large tub filled with
salted beef, bad and totally unfitted for human food. On proceeding to
the slaughter-house I observed the carcases of two sheep, which I considered
showed the marks of disease of a decided character. The butcher
remonstrated and stated that he bought the sheep at market, and
believed them to be good, although somewhat poor. Now one was
fleshy, weighty, and full of fat, the flesh of a dark colour, but soft,
moist, and pulpy: the other was pale, the flesh almost of a grey colour,
and the carcase wasted to an extreme degree. The entire viscera in
each had been removed, with the exception of the kidneys. The
kidneys in the fat and fleshy carcase were enlarged, and full of pus, in
the other, one kidney was wasted, and one contained pus. I begged
the butcher to observe their condition, took his knife and cut a section
of each, when he acknowledged their diseased state, and expressed his
sorrow, again stating that the carcases had been passed at market, and
that he was taken in. As this is a subject of universal interest, I may,
I trust, be pardoned for entering upon it more in detail than is my
usual wont in reports to your Board; inasmuch as I believe that, owing
to some strange neglect, either intentional or unintentional, in the
central market, there exists increased facilities for the sale of meat of
the above description, which in poor neighbourhoods is offered at a
price to tempt the needy, who in satisfying their hunger unconsciously
are receiving into their systems the seeds of disease in the subtle form
of animal poison.
If the owner of this diseased meat had contested the fact of its condition,
it would have been my duty to take the unsound meat before a
Magistrate, in order that it might be destroyed, and if the Vestry had
thought fit, to press subsequently for the penalty. As, however, he
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