BACON. = 
sausages, in an uncooked state. The black pig is considered by 
breeders the best of its kind for food. Dr. Hutchison tells 
that the comparative indigestibility of pork is shown by 
the fact that three and a half ounces of it require three hours 
for their complete digestion, as compared with two hours for 
an equal quantity of beef. This difficulty is fully accounted 
for by the large accumulation of fat between the fibres of the 
pork-flesh. On the other hand, the fat of bacon seems to be 
in a granular form, which is not difficult of digestion; so that 
this can often be eaten by persons to whom.other kinds of fat 
are intolerable. For which reason bacon is an invaluable aid 
for nourishing delicate children, and diabetic, or consumptive 
patients, in whose diet the free use of fat is indicated. 
From the very earliest times the wild pig seems to have 
occupied a foremost place as an article of diet, seeing that the 
bones of the wild boar are found in almost all kitchen middens 
of prehistoric times; and the animal plays an important réle in 
ancient Scandinavian legends. Even the Hebrews—for whom 
the pig was condemned as an unclean beast by the Mosaic law— 
must have afterwards set this law at naught in our Saviour’s 
time, judging by the herds of swine which fed on the hills near 
the Sea of Tiberias; since, unless pork was eaten then, it is 
difficult to conceive for what purpose these droves of swine were 
kept. Towards correcting in some measure the grossness of his 
foods, the pig, by instinct, grubs up antiscorbutic roots, and 
knows that a piece of chalk, or a mouthful of cinder, is a 
most sovereign remedy against his indigestion. The insalubrity 
of pork is generally owing to the uncleanly, and unwholesome 
feeding of the animal; and the quality of its food has a marked 
influence on the flavour of its flesh. Thus, pigs fed mainly on 
potatoes have a very white and tasteless meat, whilst the flesh 
of those porcine animals whose food has consisted largely of 
beech-nuts, has an oily taste. 
The notion that eating pork tends to cause cancer is disproved 
as regards the Jews (of whom a considerable number are no 
longer strict adherents to the Hebrew dietary laws); and 
doctors who practice among them have learnt that cancer 
attacks orthodox Jews as often as it assails the most heterodox 
in diet of their race. Nevertheless, these people are rigidly 
careful about the purity, and quality of what they eat, and 
therefore, as it would seem, cancer is considerably less prevalent 
