The San Francisco call., 1910-05-26
RAW SAUSAGES
CONCERN RIVAL
HEALTH BOARDS
Regensberger Would Destroy All
TuberculOus Cattle; Eaton
Would Cook Them
City Official Deprecates Danger
and Says Inspection Is Too
Expensive

board of health, as to the wisdom of
the action of the latter board in re-
pealing the regulations providing for
the inspection of meats
AS the law stands now, parts of the
carcass of an animal infected with
tuberculosis may be sold by butchers,
and this Doctor Regensberger heartily
condemns
Il certainly can not approve of re-
pealing the regulations" he said yes
terday. "Of course if meat containing
tuberculosis bacilH is cooked, all
danger of infection is removed, but 1
would not like to eat it myself The
real danger lies largely in the matter
of sausage
National Sausages
There are several kinds of sausages
which are eaten uncooked-notably
Mortadella, an Italian sausage: Cerve-
| lat, which is French, and mettwurst,
German. of course.
All kinds of scrap meats are sent to
the sausage factories. perhaps reeking
with bacilIi, and these go out in an
uncooked state
Another danger lies in the fact that
many physicians and nurses prescribe
scrapej beef for invalids, which is, of
course, eaten raw. What is the result?
tuberculosis for the patient all too
! frequently
When Doctor Regensberger was told
that the condemnation of tuberculosis
animals was said by many to be i'm
possible on-.aceount of TIRE hardship
worked upon the owners. he said:
MY idea is that every tuberculosis
COW should be killed and then burned
or quicklimed at once. Certainly it
works hardship on the owner, but
the community at large must not be
sacrificed for his private gain. You
might as well say that it is working a
hardship to prevent man from MAX
ing money by selling poison to people.
! This is practically the same thing.
Il have always advocated law con-
/ demning every tuberculosis animal
which supplies food. Everything that
is dangerous in a community should
be done away with, should it not?
DcC4QeUly l. 10 HOI SANCTION b0lS
change in the law made by the board
of health of San Francisco
Safety Too Expensive
Doctor Eaton would not agree that
| the repeating of the law was an unwise
move or one that was detrimental on
the whole to the community.
Il can show you," he said, Just how
impossible it would have been to carry
on the inspection as laid down by this
law. Why, it would have taken at
least one inspector for each sausage
factory in the city, and there are 80
of these. You could not pay an In
spector less than 500 month, and
there is $4,000 a year for inspectors
for sausage factories alone. To full
fill the demands of the regulations of
that ordinance, as they are construed
by the present board, we would have
had to have 60 or perhaps 20 in
spectors.
"At our meeting last night it was
pointed out by each and every dealer
present that such a law would be a
hardship, not only for the board of
health, the dealers and the butchers,
but for the consumers as well, because
the price of meat would be raised
Live Animals Wanted
Doctor Eaton explained this by say
ing that whereas dairymen in Marin
or San Mateo can now kill a few calves
and ship them to the city, or small
farmers can do the same with pigs,
the new law would necessitate these
animals being Grated and sent alive to
San Francisco to be butchered
This would be more expensive, of
course, and it would be very hard on
these small producers. Think of the
injustice to them"
Doctor Eaton had talked around the
subject of the danger to the commu-
nifty at large in less rigid inspection
of meat and when he was finally asked
point blank if he thought the injustice
to the small farmers and the increased
output of salaries for inspectors were
more serious than the menace to the
public health through being exposed TO
infection from the tuberculosis, he re-
piled:
Breathe the Plague
ITO tell you the truth. do not be-
lieve that the bacilli of tuberculosis
taken into the stomach in what YOU
eat amounts to that'-and he snapped
his finger contemptuously in the air.