DISEASED MEAT.
"A MURB.AIN among the cattle I " is an alarming announcement of the Daily News this week, and the subject is very effectively "improved" in a leading article. The manifesto is succeeded by a burst of correspondence in the daily papers, enough to make every man suspend his knife and fork, in the apprehension that in the dish before him there is a concentration of all diseases, from cow-pock upwards, that can be rendered common to quadruped and biped. The alarm perhaps subsides a little, when, on looking somewhat further, we find that we are already familiar with the subject, and that the Daily News has taken the impulse from a pamphlet by Mr. Joseph Sampson Gamgee," who has very properly drawn attention to the threatened "cattle plague," and the constant sources of bad meat supply.
We have had many murrains in this country, which have swept away flocks and have poisoned the meat-eater. The present epidemic appears to have taken its rise in the cattle-breeding districts of Eastern Europe. It is thought to be a typhoid fever, spreading perhaps by contagion, perhaps by atmospherical causes, and in fact more resembling the march of cholera over the world than an ordinary epidemic engendered by local causes and propagated by contagion. Whether the disease can be prevented by quarantine or not, there is one class of measures that appears to be absolutely essential, unless we are to suffer ourselves, by official neglect, to be poisoned through the butcher. It is certain that among the 700 head of cattle imported weekly, among the 5000 head of cattle and 20,000 sheep brought weekly to Islington market, and among the meat slaughtered in the private and public slaughter-houses of the metropolis, and exhibited in the markets and the butchers' shops, there is a sprinkling of disease, sometimes more than a sprinkling ; and it is equally certain that there are no effectual means of checking that introduction of noxious food with the wholesome.
On the contrary, the most systematic arts are used to increase the supply of the food. From some old superstition in favour of "new milk from the cow," cow-sheds are kept up in the metropolis to supply milk, although the best milk can be brought from the country with the greatest ease ; and the confinement of the cows in a bad atmosphere renders them "only fit for the butcher," as the owners would say. This is one source of the steady supply of diseased. meat. Again, cattle-dealers, slaughterers, and butchers, become learned in the art of concealing the signs of disease in the living animal, and the marks of it in the dead beast. But are there not inspectors of our public markets ? No doubt there are, and Mr. Gamgee vouches for their general courtesy and diligence ; but a part of his pamphlet amounts to what the law would deem a series of libels upon the individual inspectors of the several markets. Boldly naming them, he declares that they are not qualified for their posts, by a knowledge of cattle or the evidence of disease in the meat. He shows that the acts of Parliament are insufficient in themselves for the detection and inspection of cattle or meat ; that they cannot be worked by the magistrates ; and that the public officers appointed to work the statutes would be unable, even if the statutes were workable, through their own ignorance and inefficiency.
Mr. Gamgee tell us, and so does the Daily NeW8, that Continental countries have adopted stricter regulations. Possibly. We are inclined to believe, however, that in Paris you can obtain meat as unfit for food as would satisfy the most curious; and that in Italy you can enjoy beef and mutton which would scarcely be admitted to the shop of any respectable butcher in London : and upon the whole, we believe that the practical result of these formal • " The Cattle Plague and Diseased Meat, in their relations with the Public Health, and with the Interests of Agriculture t a Letter to the Right lion. Sir George Grey, Bart., G.C.B., Secretary of State for the Home Department. By Joseph Samson Gamgee, Staff-Surgeon of the First Class, and Principal Medical Officer of the British Italian Legion during the last War, late Assistant-Surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, mid President of the Medical Society of University College, Member of various learned Societies, British and Foreign. Medical and Veterinary." Published by Richards. restrictions on the Continent scarcely comes up to the English level. But because the Parisians are poisoned with made dishes from the knacker's, and the people of the South regard flabby meat as a luxury, it does not follow that we should still further lower the sanitary standard of our densely-crowded and sedentary metropolis, by permitting the sale of deadly meat at threepence the pound to the poor, or allow typhoid fever to reach our own table disguised by the artful butcher as respectable beef. It seems to be entirelya question of efficiency in the inspection. Mr. Gamgee has made his charge in a monful way ; and it should be met as manfully, either by disproving it, and reconciling us to our dinner, or by thoroughly reforming the regulation and inspection of markets, whether for dead or live meat.
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