UNWHOLESOME FOOD.

Southland Times, Volume III, Issue 22, 28 December 1863, Page 5 (Supplement)

UNWHOLESOME FOOD.

-(From; the Tinea) , ' "■'""> Mr Simon's annual report to the Privy -j .Council, as.its'medtca! officer, <6n^matters i relating to the public health, has just been ! issued, and among, the subjects with which it deals is that of .the consumption of the flesh of animals slaughtered while in a state of disease* , Mr Gamgee, Principal and Professor of the Edinburgh new ' Veterinary College, was requested last ; year to investigate tliis subject. He re- j ports that disease prevails very extensively in the United Kingdom among cattle, sheep, and swine ; that in very many instances the diseased state of an animal leads the owner to have it immediately slaughtered for consumption as human food, and that, in fact, as muuh as a fifth of the meat of the country comes from | animals considerably diseased. As regards meat infested with parasites, our animal food is for the most part, says Mr Simon, exposed to so high a temperature befo re it is eaten that any parasites which had their home in it were killed ; but it is pr^S bable they may outlive the processes by which meat is commonly cured, and may thus get swallowed alive by persons who eat uncooked.sausage, ham, or bacon, and we know that meat infested with parasites may become, a source of human disease. Or, by means of dogs and other animals eating- the raw offal of slaughterhouses, the eggs of the tapeworm may, and must often find their way into sources of drinking water, or on to various low growing vegetables or fruits, which are consumed in an uncooked state by man ; and, being swallowed, the egg is hatched, and the animal burrows through the walls of the stomach or intestines, migrates to some other part of the bady, and there grows to its developemenl as a cystic entozoon. In Iceland a fifth part of the human ' mortality re ascribed to hydatid disease. Mr Gamgee is confident that there are between 40,000 and 50,000 measly pigs in Ireland, most of which come to Great Britain for consumption, and his impression is that for every measly pig in t^e kingdom there is at least one human being with tapeworms. These parasites may not directly kill, but may favor the development of fatrfl disease. It has also been discovered quite recently that a microscopical threadworm, the trichina spiralis, brings the muscular flesh of swine into a state in which a small quantity of it eaten taw will suftice to destroy life. As regards tfre possible ill effects from consuming in a well cooked state the flesh of animals afflicted with anthrax or carbuncal fever, evidence is still imperfect, but it seems clear that huraau life may be endangered -by it. But in respect to this, and also the effects of consuming the flesh of animals which have been suffering from infectious fever, until public attention is drawn lo ihe subject it must be difficult to trace to their true causes any ill effects thus occasioned, especially those of a chronic character which ma}', perhaps, result from febrile meat being a considerable element in diet. An opinion is sometimes expressed that boils and perhaps oilier like affections arc caused in the human subject by the consumption of such meat. Mr Gamgee says that at a convict establishment wheru diseased cattle are eaten in large quantities, and especially caitle afficled with lung disease, as many as 40 and 50 cases a month of boils ami carbuncles occur among 150U convicts. In some cases also meat may be injurious in consequence of t he animal having been excessively drugged during Jife, as, i'or instance, with arsenic 0!" strychnia ; hut generally it might be expected that no drugging of an anianil in j doses not sufficient to poison it could render its flesh capable of acting as a poison on man. Some notice is taken in these papers of the effect of the :nilk of diseased animals. In thisconntry the most important question is as to the whole>o;neness of milk from animais afflicted with aphthous eruption — a malady which never was more prevalent than in the year 18(32. On some occasions, when aptha his been prevailing among cattle, the human population in the same place has suffered from the s.ime or sonic similar disorder; and it seems certain that, uiklt some circumstances, the human affection may be caused by the consumption of milk drawn from a diseased animal. Mr Gamgee avows a lelief that a very large proportion of the disease now habitually prevailing among live stock, and which he estimates as proving fatal to them, to the immense pecuniary amount of .£(3,000,01)0 a year, might by proper measures be prevented. The epidemic diseases are due entirely to contagion, probably foreign, against the introduction and spread of which sufficient precautions are, in his opinion, not taken ; and the most destructive endemic diseases are due partly to dietetic mismanagement of stock, snd partly to local malaria, which improved land drainage would dispel. His estimate is that of animals in the United Kingdom there die annually of disease about 355,000 cattle — nearly 5 pr cent, of the whole number, and of money value of a))ove 1/4,000,000; of our (supposed) 40,000,000 sheep not less than 4 per cent, of the value of L 1,600,000 ; and of our 4,3U0,000 pigs not less than 3 per cent., of the value of L 1,200,000. He considers that if enzootic disorders, which depend on peculiarities of soil, climate and sys:eni of culture, were prevented, as they might be, thousands of acres would be worthmuch more than they are, and that at ten--' tion to this subject would for many years to come add more to the resourcee of the kingdom than the reclamation of land does.