London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Stepney 1904

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Stepney]

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47
unfit for human food, and I had them taken to the Police Court, where they
were condemned by the Magistrate. I visited the Knacker's yard, and examined
the carcase that had been removed from the above premises. I found that it
was the carcase of a cow that had been pole-axed and properly bled. It was,
however, extensively tuberculous and very emaciated. It was the carcase of
one of the twelve cows that had been killed the previous night, and was found
to be so obviously extensively diseased as to be unfit for human food. On my
return to the butcher's premises, the same tale was persisted in, until I told the
owner that I had examined the carcase at the Knacker's yard, and that I could
prove that it was not the one that had been removed from White Horse Lane.
He then admitted that the carcase removed from White Horse Lane had been
sent to the Meat Market to be sold. I immediately communicated with the
City Authorities and tried to stop its being sold for human food, but failed to
trace it. Pour days afterwards, the butcher told me that he had made another
mistake; that he had not sent the carcase to the Meat Market at all, but to a
butcher in Charterhouse Street. The carcase had been disposed of by this
time, probably for making sausages.
Proceedings were taken against the butcher for having deposited for sale
on his premises five livers which were unsound and unfit for human food.
The defence was that a certain tripe dresser contracted to buy all livers from
the defendant. If any livers were delivered that were unfit for human food,
they were either destroyed at our destructor, or sold as cats meat. The
case was dismissed, because the Magistrate accepted the evidence that the
livers would be destroyed by the tripe dresser, if they were not fit to eat, and
only the sound livers would be paid for.
The tripe dresser had bought livers from the defendant for several years,
but on one occasion only did he have livers destroyed at our destructor. The
slaughter-house license was objected to at the following annual licensing
committee meeting. As the owner of the license had been cautioned three
years previously, the London County Council refused to renew the license.
The owner of the cowhouse license at White Horse Lane was also severely
cautioned.
On September 6th, a barrow load of plums was stopped for examination
in Yalford Street. The owner immediately absconded, leaving the barrow and
the plums in the custody of the Sanitary Inspector. The plums were found
to be unsound, and unfit for human consumption, and were destroyed.