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255
[1909
INSPECTION OF FOOD.
This part of the work of the Public Health Department was satisfactorily
performed. It is everywhere looked upon as a most important duty, and
especially so with respect to the inspection of food animals, whether immediately
after slaughter or when the carcases have been cut up and placed
for sale as joints. In 1906, owing to the revelations at Chicago, there was considerable
anxiety exhibited by the public as to the sufficiency of the inspection
adopted in our towns, but now that the scare has subsided nothing is heard.
There is no doubt that it did an enormous amount of good, and led many
English authorities to examine their defences against diseases caused by the
consumption of unsound food, while in the United States a special Federal
Act was passed, the Pure Food Law, and elaborate regulations were issued
by their Government to insure that the public should get sound meat, whether
canned or not, and to put an end to methods of handling and packing foodproducts
that were not only uncleanly but also dangerous to health. It was
shown that the establishments and slaughter houses were dirty; that a traffic
existed in questionable meats; and that tuberculosis existed among the
workers in a proportion far in excess of their numbers.
That state of things has been remedied, and as a recent American writer,
Dr. Albert Leffingwell, says in his book, " American Meat," " Taken all in all,
" it would appear that the principal meat-packing establishments of Chicago
" are now conducted with as strict attention to the demands of cleanliness as
" circumstances permit, or as the most fastidious critic could require. What
" the casual visitor may not remember is the fact that the real value of each
" and every food-product depends not merely upon the nicety with which the
" processes of manufacture are carried on, but above everything upon the quality
" of the meat comprising them. It is probable that on this point the visitor will
" learn nothing from observation in the packing-house, no matter how frequent
" his visits, or how keen his sight."
The writer then proceeds to show how the regulations are evaded or construed
in favour of the great packers, and one rises from the perusal of the
book, which is written in an exaggerated style that greatly discounts its reliability,
with a feeling that although the methods of preparing and packing meats may
have been improved, the meat itself is no better, and that an undue proportion
of the pork dispatched to England is trichinous. He complains strongly that
there is no microscopical examination made of the pork intended either for
home consumption or export to England, and that " more singular than