View report page

15
in comparison with the increase of population. The private slaughter houses offered
facilities for keeping up this trade of supplying meat which was often poisonous. It was
wrong to bring forward medical men to give evidence in regard to diseased meat. There
was but one safe rule, and that was the one which had been given by the great law-giver,
Moses, namely, that such meat should not be eaten. If we had had a law to suppress the
trade in this kind of meat, we should probably have meat twenty-five or thirty per cent.
cheaper than it is now. Any rational method to put a stop to disease would, if successful,
add largely to the food of the country. It was very difficult to impress this fact on the
public mind. Last century this country was invaded by cattle disease. Cattle were
brought freely from other countries, and they propagated the disease throughout the land.
The attention of our physicians was called to the subject, and it was here that the principle,
which had been lately recognized and credited to other countries, namely, that of
stamping out the disease, was first brought into practice. After that, the traffic in
diseased animals was stopped, and the British cattle were isolated from the foreign. Up
to 1840 animals increased in numbers, and instead of the price of meat going up, it went
down. But after this date, Sir Robert Peel opened the ports to foreign cattle, and since
then we have seen nothing but a steady deterioration. This country would have been
many millions of money richer in cattle if foreign ones had not been imported. With
regard to the safeguards which the present system kept up against diseased meat, he could
assure the meeting that he would have no difficulty whatever in getting a large quantity
of such meat if he desired it. This showed a condition of things inherent to, and
inseparable from, the system of private slaughter houses. In Edinburgh the opposite
system had been brought to a state of great efficiency. The ignorance in the minds of
those who were able to introduce a better state of things was, he thought, disgraceful,
and it was intolerable that there should be no system of watchfulness, the want of which
condemned our people, in many instances, virtually to starvation. Simple precautions,
such as were mentioned in the paper, would obviate these evils. He would develope, as
much as possible, the free-trade in meat, but stop that in disease. He thought its
abolition was impossible so long as the private slaughter houses existed. He had come
to the conclusion, from what he had seen of the use made of diseased meat in sausages,
and by the third-rate butchers, that it was with them impossible to have any system
adequate to protect the public.
Mr. Sneade Brown called attention to the evidence which had been given in a former
number of the "Transactions" of the Society, in regard to Leith and other towns,
where private slaughter houses were not allowed, and in which it was shown that there
had been an advantage to everyone. He himself had, in common with others who lived
in his neighbourhood, experienced the nuisance the vicinity of one of these places created
in a very unpleasant way; and he could feel for the poor in a similar case, for, not being
in a position to defend themselves, it being much worse for them than for those who
could do so. In a Report issued by the Government in 1865, where the slaughter
houses had been examined, in the course of an inquiry instituted for the purpose of
devising measures for the prevention of a disease which had appeared on the continent,
there were some terrible pictures of the condition of slaughter houses. All of them were
found to have objectionable features. In his (Mr. Brown's) opinion, unless these places
could be put into proper condition, they should be closed altogether.
Dr. Alfred Carpenter said the question ought to be taken up in reference to every
large town in the kingdom. In the district with which he was connected new slaughter
houses had been forbidden and public abattoirs erected. But he was sorry to say they