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animals suffering from fever or other acute inflammatory
affections, or from lingering disease, as well
as of animals that have died from natural causes,
and all meat in a high state of putrefaction, and
meat tainted with physic.
Some such a practice as this is followed all
over the world; indeed, very early in the history
of legislation it was found necessary to make
rules for the preservation of the public health
from the effects of unsound meat. The regulations
of the Jews for the slaughtering of
animals, and for the examination of the flesh,
are of pre-historic date. They are partly founded
on the written law of Moses, as set forth
in the books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and
partly on very ancient tradition. They refer, not
only to the conditions which render the meat wholesome
or unwholesome, but also to the mode of
slaughter, the place of slaughter, and to the qualifications
of the persons who perform it. The chief
circumstance which indicates that the meat is unwholesome
is the presence of disease in the lungs, as
tubercles, abscesses, ulcers, consolidations, or adhesions;
and no animal is permitted to be used as
food that has died from accident or disease. The
duty of examining the meat is confided to a responsible
officer, who is called the Searcher, and who is
bound by religious obligations to see that all the