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boneless meat. No doubt this boneless meat does make a supply of cheap meat
available for the poorer classes in the form largely of sausages and mince. If the
prohibition of the importation of boneless and other unexaminable meat would cause
deterioration in the standard of nutrition of these people it would certainly be
exchanging a small doubtful risk for a certain serious one, an adequate diet being
the first essential for the maintenance of health. But I am inclined to think that it
would be possible to put the inspection of imported meat on a more satisfactory
basis and yet ensure an ample supply of cheap meat.
There appear to me to be three possible courses of action, viz.:—
(1) Concentrate on ensuring a high standard of inspection and organisation
in the abattoirs abroad and discontinue the inspection for disease of
imported meat arriving in this country, or
(2) restrict the importations of carcase meat to quarters of beef, whole carcases
of mutton and whole carcases or sides of pork, or
(3) restrict importations to (2) above, plus the cuts recognised in the London
wholesale meat market.
Inspection under (3) would not be so efficient as under (2), but practically all the cuts do
present some tissues which may be usefully examined and boneless meat would be
eliminated. Wholesale cuts vary slightly in different parts of the country, but at
the present time we are accepting all sorts of strange cuts with names unrecognised
in the home trade. Surely the London wholesale cuts could be accepted as a standard
for imported meat.
The problem is a difficult one, but the position of the Port Sanitary Authority
is at present illogical in that they are the Authority responsible for the inspection of
imported meat, yet they can only inspect the best because inferior meat arrives in
unexaminable form.
It seems, therefore, that some effort should be made to put the inspection of
imported meat on a better basis."
Having witnessed a demonstration of unexaminable meat, kindly arranged by
Dr. W. M. Willoughby, the Medical Officer of Health of the City of London, and
staged by Mr. Grace, Veterinary Surgeon at Smithfield Market, your Sub-Committee
decided that the inspection of imported meat could be satisfactorily carried out
only if imports were restricted to quarters of beef, whole carcases of mutton and
whole carcases or sides of pork, except that internal organs such as livers, kidneys, &c.,
might be imported separately, since they would in themselves show evidence of
disease and, provided they were suitably packed, could be adequately inspected.
This view your Sub-Committee expressed very strongly in a subsequent interview
with representatives of the Ministry of Health.
CANNED FOODS.
On 19th October, 1934, your Medical Officer read the following Paper before the
Medical Committee of the Association of Port Sanitary Authorities. The points
raised are still under consideration by the Committee:—
Inspection of Canned Food.
"When the Port Sanitary Regulations, 1933, came into force the Association of
Port Sanitary Authorities was able to secure a very large measure of uniformity in
Quarantine procedure in the Port of the United Kingdom, and more recently the
Association have endeavoured to ensure that the standards of inspection of imported
meat should be as nearly uniform as possible. I have already made some further
suggestions in regard to the latter, and now I would ask you to consider some problems
in connection with the inspection of canned foods. The following points appear to
me to merit consideration:—
1. Inspection in relation to Customs Examination.—Article 7 (5) of the Public
Health (Imported Food) Regulations, 1925, provides that the Food Inspector shall