Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-14
DR., Mundorff Claims That Even the
Flesh of Diseased Animals is
a Harmless Food
PROVIDED IT is WELL COOKED.
Efforts of Inspectors to Prevent the Sale OF
Unhealthy Beeves Have Gen.
orally Been Futile.
rUMORS EATEN BY THE PEOPLE DAILY,
And, Contrary to Popular Belief the Doctor Says No
Injury Results


national reputation as a microscopic and
pathologist, and whose discourses are
watched by scientific men everywhere,
yesterday made some rather startling state
ments, which are directly against popular
belief and all precedents. In long inter-
view he saws that people eat tumors daily
in their food, and then counteracted the
sensation given by this startling statement
by saying that, though they eat tumors in
meat, etc, disease germs are not conveyed
that way, and that disease germs in food,
with few exceptions, are harmless.
He SAYS that the efforts of meat inspectors
and cattle inspectors are futile in preventing
disease, as dressed food cannot convey dis
ease germs, with a few exceptions, if it is
properly cooked.
The doctor lives among his microscopes
and books in his study, and when making a
microscopic analysis is utterly oblivious to
all surroundings. 1t was in one of these
moods that he was found last night. His
microscopes were on the table, his tools for
working spread about, and, together with
the books and papers strewn around, the
scene was an ideal one of scientist in his
den.
A STARTLING QUERY ANSWERED.
The doctor apparently took no notice OF
the fact that someone was present, until he
suddenly turned round and startled the per-
son from his reverie by saying: "Do you
know we are eating tumors every day?"
The question, OF course, brought mega
tive answer and a query, and the doctor,
continuing, said: II say, are we eating
tumors? In the meat that is supplied us at
our doors by daily vendors, in the meat in
local markets, in the meat sold everywhere,
we find our answer to the question, Are we
eating tumors.'
'What is tumor? A tumor is simply a
new growth added to tine pre-existing tissues
OF a living body, and which is
governed by law of develop
ment all its own. When we analyze
healthy meat, we find cell: built on cell,
forming fiber until fiber joins fiber, ali
after the fashioning of nature in the build
ing of this healthy structure. When we
analyze a tumor we find cell added to cell,
and all as in the fashion of healthy meat
structure and in the order of nature. Hence
how could we possibly detect the taste of a
tumor or recognize it by the odor, unless it
has some distinct characteristic or other
physical feature which would lead an expert
to recognize it at glance.
SOME ARGUMENTS PRoPoUNDED.
"The people are not experts, and vet it
would appear at first glance that the people
are healthy notwithstanding the fact that
they are living on diseased meat Take
the steak that is supplied us, and we shall
ind occasionally that we are eating a por-
uon, which excites no aversion, although it
is tumor.
"Cows are just as subject to tumor-more
SO, in fact, than man-because of the con-
ditions againstwhich they have to strugglein
their lowly condition. Take their milk A
small speck on consumptive lung is a
tuberele, and the milk that comes from a
COW that has tubercles is tuberculous.
Take our American swine, with 10 per
cent of their number infested with
triehiua spiralis. Take our pork
afflicted with measles. Take
swine with the sarcoma growths
that invade the soft parts and destroy the
bene, or take them with some other para
sites that by direct transmission have be-
come deadly to man. We find that wherever
single specimen lodges it excites inham-
nation and changes the healthy condition
OF the surrounding tissue. We find fresh
cell formations, aud, in the words OF our off
hand definition, tumor.
DISEASES OF SHEEP.
Take the sheep. with Its tendency to de-
velop local spots of Inflammation, leading
eventually 70 interferences with the well
being of the animal until it sickens and, if
not killed, dies. Take fish subject to the
same mal-formations at certain points In
their structure
Take the oyster, forming the pearl
within, the product of morbid action, and
which is preceded by Inflammation, making !
its life unhealthy. Take all these various
forms of food supplied to man, and everv- |
where We lind the law of malformation at |
work making the lives of these living Great |
ures unhealthy. Now attempt to separate |
all really healthy meat from diseased, and, |
beyond certain limit, it Is absolutely i'm |
possible.
Tine German Government laid an edict |
against American swine. They employed |
an army OF microscopists, the most learned |
in the nation. All pork that entered the |
German market from American sources was |
submitted by the army of observers to
rigid analysis.
The Germans permitted the sale of their
own swine and the result was they had |
diseased pork, small tumors formed in the
pork formed by that dangerous worm. the
triehina spiralis. And the German people
not being able to see the tumor or taste il
nor discover II by visible signs, found
themselves victims of an outbreak produced
by this dangerous parasite.
THE GERMAN HOG EMBARGO.
''Then, the German Government, turning
us aIIe0LlOu dSlQ6 IrOm Lne SuDDly of |
American pork, long under the ban
of suspicion, made fresh investig 4tions into
the sources of infection in German swine.
In measure, the efforts of the inspection
met with success. The suspected swine
were barred out Droves were sequestered
in less dangerous localities and the outbreak
of trichiniasis for a time disappeared, but
they had not, with all the skill of the scien-
fists, blotted out the possible re-develop-
ment OF tumors In German swine caused BY
this worm.
Take again the great western slaughter
houses where cattle are driven in droves to
the killing pens and quickly deprived OF
life and reduced to form suitable Tor hu-
man consumption. How many of them that
are truly diseased are, as matter of fact,
separated from the doomed herd before being
slaughtered. The cattle inspector, pIancing
over mob Of cattle will select those with
obvious and gross physical de;ormities and
those which appear to be suffering with
some disease that cattle are subject to, and
separate them.
''The great body of the cattle slaughtered
have not undergone the rigid ipspectiop
science demands in order that its reonire-
ments may be satisfied.
NOT PROPERLY INSPECTED.
''They have not undergone microscopie
anal isis of their tissues, have not had their :
tumors pointed out, and. as !
diseased meat, are thrown on the market
tor the people to decide BY taste and color /
and smell andotber physical characteristics
whether the meat is healthy or not.
@What is the outcome? That every /