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233
[1905
It is satisfactory to be able to report that their condition as regards
cleanliness is very good, and that the slaughtering of animals has been carried
out under the most favourable circumstances, so that it may be safely asserted
that there are no similar places in London or elsewhere that can be found
in a better condition.
From these remarks it is not to be understood that the Medical Officer
of Health thinks that private slaughterhouses are the best places for the
slaughtering of cattle intended for human food, but only that the conditions
existing in the Borough are of their kind exceedingly good.
Blowing Lamb and Yeal.—Last year attention was drawn to this
matter, and once more Inspector Wilkinson comments on it, and his remarks,
being those of an experienced butcher, are worthy of attention. There can
be no doubt that the inflation or blowing of lamb and veal with the breath
of human beings is most objectionable, "and is a practice that should be put
down by legislative enactment.
In the report for 1904, the Medical Officer of Health commented on the
case of a man who had been successively in the employment of two butchers,
and who did this class of work, who had died of consumption of the lungs,
so that he had, while performing this duty, been blowing into the flesh of
calves and lambs the germs of tuberculosis.
What this man did no doubt hundreds of other men are doing to-day.
Some communities throughout the country have received legislative power to
stop such practices, and, therefore, it may not be too much to hope that
Londoners may receive similar protection from the Government. Even the
Chicago revelations cannot be beaten by the fact of human beings being
allowed in London to deliberately poison meat, intended for human food,
with their breath laden with millions of bacilli tuberculosis.