200 ANNUAL KEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



cause of disease or other condition 113,742 entire carcasses and 874,211 

 parts of carcasses, making a total of nearly 1,000,000 animals con- 

 demned in whole or in part. In addition there were condemned on 

 reinspection over 19,000,000 pounds of meat and meat products which 

 had become unwholesome since inspection at the time of slaughter. 

 More detailed figures relating to the meat inspection appear in the 

 portion of this report dealing with the work of the Inspection 

 Division. 



Notwithstanding the great improvement in sanitary conditions 

 brought about under the additional authority given the Department 

 by the law of 1906, and the high degree of efficiency to which the 

 service has been brought, the meat inspection is still occasionally the 

 object of unjust criticism and misrepresentation. Some of these 

 matters have been discussed in previous reports. Objection is some- 

 times made to the passing for food purposes of the meat of animals 

 that are affected with localized tuberculosis or other localized disease 

 or condition. It is sometimes falsely asserted that " diseased meat 

 is passed for food." The only foundation for such statements is that 

 the wholesome and healthy meat of an animal affected slightly and 

 locally with some disease is passed, after the affected portion has 

 been removed and condemned. The meat or flesh may not be affected 

 in any particular, the disease being usually confined to certain glands 

 or organs. The diseased portion is condemned; only the healthy 

 portion is passed for food. 



This procedure is justified and sustained by the highest scientific 

 authorities not only in the United States but in all countries having 

 an efficient meat inspection. Objections to it usually come from those 

 who have not made a study of comparative pathology and who are 

 not qualified to pass upon the questions involved, and sometimes 

 they come from those w^lio oppose the use of meat at all as food and 

 who wish to discredit it in every possible way. 



The idea of eating the meat of a slightly diseased animal may be 

 repulsive to some, but a little consideration should readily convince 

 a reasonable person that there is no valid reason for condemning and 

 wasting perfectly wholesome meat simply because there happens to 

 be somewhere in the animal a gland or an organ showing a lesion, or 

 a parasitic nodule, or some slight, local condition which does not 

 extend to or affect in any way the remainder of the carcass. The 

 argument that all the meat of an animal affected to even the slightest 

 degree with any disease should be totally and utterly condemned, if 

 caiTied to the extreme and to its logical end, would result in the 

 condemnation of practically every animal slaughtered and the aboli- 

 tion of meat as food. 



With the increasing cost of the necessaries of life it becomes more 

 important that wholesome food should not be recklessl}'^ and need- 

 lessly destroyed, and it is the duty of this Department not only to 

 protect the people against unwholesome meat, but to conserve the food 

 suppl}''. The only sensible course in meat inspection is to determine 

 at just what stage a disease or abnormal condition becomes noxious, 

 and where to draw the line between what should be condemned and 

 what should be passed, always giving to the consumer the benefit of 

 any doubt. That the Department does properly safeguard the con- 

 sumer is well shown in the report of a commission of eminent sci- 

 entists outside the Department, who were appointed in 1907 by the 



