390 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
and export trade, the Secretary of Agriculture early adopted the plan of 
making each firm enter into an agreement, to abide by the rules and 
regulations and to tank all diseased meats that are condemned by the 
inspectors before he grants them inspection, and should they refuse to 
stand by this agreement, he could take the inspection away from them. 
By this method, the chances for a conflict between the packers and in- 
spector, and the federal and state inspectors, is greatly lessened and the 
local patrons of these houses get meats that are inspected the same as 
those for interstate and export trade. 
From a sanitary standpoint, the meat products from the large packing 
houses where federal inspectoins are maintained, are more wholesale than 
are the meats slaughtered in the smaller houses where no inspection is 
maintained, because, where there is no inspection, the butcher will seldom 
tank a whole carcass, but usually he will trim off the diseased parts and 
sell the remainder. The fact that the federal government maintains a 
system of inspection at the larger live stock centers, adds rather than 
detracts from the reasons why local communities should maintain inspec- 
tion at their local slaughter houses; because the tendency is for those 
who know that their stock is diseased to try to sell it at home and often 
they will sell at a very low figure rather than ship it to the stock yards 
where there is inspection and take the chances of having it^condemned. 
For this reason, many diseased animals find their way to the slaughter 
house of the local butcher, who, because there is so inspector present to 
watch him, can remove the diseased parts and sell the remainder as good 
wholesome meat to the unsuspecting public. 
Having thus given a somewhat general discussion of the reason why 
meats should be inspected and the objects to be obtained, we will now take 
up the discussion of how the work is done. 
In the first place, there are at least two inspections of every animal — 
the first of the animal while alive, which is known as the ante-mortem. 
This is made at the stock yards, or where there are no public yards, in the 
pens of the packing house where the animal is killed. This ante-mortem 
inspection is for two purposes. First, to note such animals as show symp- 
toms of such diseases as actinomycosis, lumpy jaw, hog cholera, etc. 
These animals are tagged or marked, asd a notice is sent to the inspector 
in the slaughter house, so that the symptoms that they present alive, may 
be considered when the final inspection is made of the carcass. The sec- 
ond purpose is to learn if they are affected with any contagious disease 
that is of sufficient importance to demand attention, such as sheep or cat- 
tle scab, hog cholera, etc. 
It will be readily understood that the inspection at our large public 
yards, where many animals are received from various parts of the coun- 
try to be sold and re-shipped to other parts, is of great importance, not so 
much from the point of wholesome meats, but more especially to the stock 
industry because of the check it forms to the carrying of contagious dis- 
eases from one section of the country to others, some of which might be 
of considerable distances. 
By the system now in vogue, all stock arriving at yards where inspec- 
tion is maintained, is inspected at the dock as the animals are unloaded; 
or in case they have been unloaded in the night, they are inspected in 
