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15
ble trade. From thence the meat either finds its way into the
market as such, being retailed for the most part to the indigent
classes and in the lowest neighbourhoods, or passes into the
hands of the manufacturers of saveloys and certain descriptions
of sausages, much employed as articles of food by the same
description of consumers.
In the second place, few will be bold enough to deny, that
the milk derived from cows in a state of unhealthiness or
absolute disease, is likely to act prejudicially when used as an
article of food. The extent to which this is the case is still
matter for investigation.
To these two grounds of objection it is lastly to be added,
that the keeping of cows in close proximity to human dwellings
is in a variety of ways directly prejudicial to the public
health. A cow shed, unless its drainage and ventilation be of
the most perfect description, and the arrangements for cleansing
effective, must of necessity be a greater nuisance even than a
slaughter house. Besides the obvious sources of contamination
which are commonly associated with cow sheds, such as
decomposing excrements and remains of food, and particularly
the distillers' grains which are so largely employed, the air is
rendered unwholesome by the products of respiration. When
it is considered that a cow vitiates more than five times as
much air by its breathing than a man in the same time, it may
be well understood that for human beings to inhabit, as
frequently happens, tenements which are under the same roof
as cow sheds, must be attended with the worst consequences.
ADULTERATION OF MILK.
Of all the varieties of adulteration to which the attention
of the public has been of late so prominently directed, there
are none which bear comparison in their importance, in
relation to public health, with those of milk and of bread. If
the latter may be said to be the staff of life to the adult, the
former is no less so to the child; and it is further to be considered
that the adulteration of milk acquires an importance superior
even to that of bread, from the fact that it occurs more
frequently, and exercises an influence more distinctly injurious.