View report page

51
permit the unrestricted sale of such meat in all
stages of the disease. In fact, notwithstanding all
the experience and authority alluded to, it is still
the practice on the continent to forbid the use of
such meat; and the most stringent measures are
adopted to prevent the sale of it: indeed, the
regulations which are in force for the sale of
butchers' meat generally are far more severe and
precise than with us. Here there are no special
rules for the condemnation of bad meat, but merely
a general provision that the medical officer of
health, or the inspector of slaughter-houses, or the
inspector of nuisances may at all reasonable times
inspect and examine any animal, carcass, meat,
poultry, game, flesh, fish, &c., exposed for sale, or
deposited in any place for the purpose of sale, or
in preparation for sale, or intended for the food of
man, and in case it appears to the medical officer
or inspector to be diseased, or unsound, or unwholesome,
or unfit for the food of man, it shall be lawful
for him to seize the same, and for a Justice to order
it to be destroyed. In this regulation there is no
particular description of the kind of food which
is unwholesome, or of the circumstances which
render it so, and therefore much is left to the
descretion of the officer who examines the food, as
to whether it is unsound or not. The practice in
the City of London is to condemn the flesh of
animals infected with certain parasites, and of
e 2