View report page

82
It is desirable that I should report somewhat fully upon the last
case, the facts of which are as follows:—
On November 7th, about 7 a.m., Inspector Billing visited Messrs.
Lipton's Sausage Factory in Cayton Street, City Road, E.C. This
factory is a large building of three floors. The ground floor is used
for boning and mincing meat preparatory to the making of sausages.
There are five mincing machines and several benches on which the
meat is cut up and boned. There is also a refrigerator. The other
floors are used for weighing, filling and platting sausages, and for
the preparation of German sausages. On November 7th, Inspector
Billing visited this place at an unusual hour, his ordinary visits
having been made about once a fortnight at about 11 a.m. On the
present occasion he found a quantity of glands on a box near the
weighing machine. Some of these were tuberculous. He was informed
that these glands were removed from pork which had arrived that
morning. On a bench near at hand there were about 30 pigs' heads.
On examining the first of these he found it contained tuberculous
deposits. The other heads were free from this disease. The Inspector
then asked the foreman (Russell) where the remainder of the carcase
was to which this tuberculous head belonged. Russell replied, "The
two sides must be in the refrigerator, and the pieces are somewhere
about on these benches." Subsequently, some pieces ("collar" and
"pillars of diaphragm") were found with marked signs of tuberculosis.
These pieces were amongst good meat there and then being prepared
for the machines. The two sides, which it was stated were portions
of the same tuberculous carcase, were removed from the refrigerator.
Inspector Billing sent for me. On arrival, I found these five pieces of
tuberculous meat which had been taken from four different parts of
the factory and the small pile of glands. I asked where the meat was
from which these glands had been taken, but no one could furnish
me with an answer to that question. I did not then examine the sides,
but accepted them on the word of the Secretary, Mr. W. S. Carmichael,
as part of the tuberculous carcase. I do not assert that they were
part of the carcase, and I told Mr. Carmichael that I was compelled
to accept with reserve his statement that all these parts and pieces
were one and the same carcase. I saw seven or eight men actually
engaged in boning and trimming pork and four or five others assisting,
The "boners" were removing glands and trimmings from the meat.
They did not examine the glands in any way whatever to see whether
they were healthy or diseased. They simply cut out all glands and
passed the meat for food. I pointed out to Mr. Carmichael that such
a process of gland removal was highly unsatisfactory, as the removal