The Express.
London, England, 1863-09-08 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8.

PEOPLE generally hug themselves in the belief
that, however much their bread and other articles
of manufactured food may be adulterated, their
meat is at any rate free from any foreign element,
and may be eaten without the fear of poisoning.
Our beef and mutton, we fondly imagine, are
free from vitiation. We may cut and come again
safely at the sirloin or the saddle. We have only
to goto a first-class butcher, and pay the best prices
(two things, however, which a large number of per-
sons cannot do), and we are beyond the reach of
halm in that direction. The reliance-is more pleasing
than well grounded. We seem doomed to impurity
and filthiness in the food that we consume. In
vain do we fly from bread made of maggotty
yeast to the flesh of oxen, sheep, and swine. A
large amount of the meat that comes to our tables
is adulterated by disease. No doubt this is less
likely to be the case when a good price is paid ;
but butchers are mere men, and sometimes sell
inferior commodities while charging the highest
terms. Mr. Slitos's last annual Report to the
Privy Council on our sanitary condition opens
the eyes of the public to the disagreeable fact that
as much as a fifth of the meat purchased for food
in this country is diseased. Some investigations
into the subject have been made, at Mr. SIMON%
request, by Mr. Gsnoza, Principal and Professor
of the Edinburgh new Veterinary College, and
from these it appears that a good deal of the
mischief is found in connexion with the pork we get
from Ireland. From forty to fifty thousand of the
pigs reared in the sister island are measly, and the
greater number of these come to Great Britain
for consumption. That such meat should be
taken into the human stomach is something more
than a disgusting idea ; it is the source of serious
disease. Mr. Garrotte calculates that for every
measly pig in the kingdom there is at least one
human being with tapeworms. When meat is
cooked the action of the fire probably destroys
the germs of these parasites ; but it should not
be forgotten that a large amount of pig's flesh is
eaten raw by the lower classes. In Italy raw
ham is considered a delicacy ; in England
working men frequently indulge in uncooked
bacon, and sometimes in pork sausages that are
innocent of the frying pan. The danger of the
practice is made startlingly apparent when we learn
that the muscular flesh of swine is sometimes
brought into so poisonous a state by the ravages of
a minute species of threadwimm, invisible except
by the aid of the microscope, that a small quantity
eaten raw will destroy life. Pork and bacon are
purchased by our poorer classes perhaps to a
greater extent than any other meat, and the pre-
valence of measles and the various forms of
hydatid disease amongst those classes may doubt-
less be attributed in a considerable degree to their
large consumption of swine's flesh. Sausages are
especially perilous, for it is well known that
the less reputable sausage makers thick no meat
4oci bed to make up in this cieCtrtiTo form, Pro-
vided the nastiness can be disguised by spict:l and
condiments. One is almost tempted, after the
revelations we have had of late years, to follos
the example of the Jews, and vote the pig an un-
clean animal hopelessly and for ever. Much as
we have done for him in the way of cleanliness,
be still continues as great a source of disease
to the human subject as he was in the
time of Moors under the burning sun of the East.
The propagation of parasitical ova from
impure animals is effected, moreover, in many
ways besides the direct one, and sometimes,
according to Mr. SIMON% report, by a route
that would never have been suspected by the un-
learned. For, "by means of dogs and other
" animals eating the raw offal of ahiughter-houses,
" 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 °assumed in an uncooked state by
" man, and, being swallowed, the egg is hatched."
The development of entosoa is, indeed, extremely
subtle, and very difficult to be guarded against ;
but infecieti iood is undoubtedly fr. 3 of the means
by which the evil is introduced into the human sys-
tem. The question is of serious importance ; for, ac-
cording to the estimate of Mr. GANORM, disease of
on. kind or another is fatal every year in the
three kingdoms to about 375,000 cattle (nearly
five per cent. of the whole number), while
in the case of sheep and pigs the pro-
portion is, respectively, as far as can
be ascertained, four per cent. and three per cent.
It is very certain that a large number of these
animals are sold for food ; and even of those
beasts that are slaughtered many are already
in a state of disease, and would probably die of
their ailments if the butcher's knife did not anti-
cipate the result. It has been found in • large
convict establishment that an epidemic of boils
and carbuncles followed the use of meat from
cattle afflicted with lung disease. Milk from un-
healthy cows is also chargeable with some of the
maladies which human beings have to endure. We
may, in fact, be said to live over again the lives of
those animals from which we draw our sustenance,
and to be healthy or diseased in proportion to the
bodily condition of the creatures we rear for food.
It was a qnaint expression, but not an untruthful
or ludicrous thought, on the part of old
mystical Sir THOMAS BROWNE, when he said that
all the flesh of our bodies has at one time been
upon our platters. We have, therefore, the
deepest interest in seeing that what comes to our
platters is in a fit state to be converted into its
higher form.
How is the mischief to be prevented t Mr.
Gauozz is of opinion that sufficient precautions