INFLUENCE OF COLD STORAGE ON HEALTH 219 



"Prior to the War, only the following towns were provided with slaughter- 

 house refrigeration plants : Tiflis, Astrakhan, Rostof-on-Don, Taganrog, Riga, 

 Tashkent, Minsk, Moscow, and Petrograd. Most of the big cities are still 

 unprovided with these facilities. The various municipal councils have become 

 conscious of this unsatisfactory state of affairs, and projects for building 

 improved slaughterhouses, provided with refrigerating plants, are now pre- 

 senting themselves everywhere. 



"The great cities and meat-consuming centers were supplied by trans- 

 porting live cattle from the breeding districts in Siberia, the Northern Cau- 

 casus, and the Steppe district. Only during frosty weather were the cattle 

 killed and frozen by natural means at the place of production. The frozen 

 meat was then carried in trucks to the capitals and industrial districts in 

 Russia. This primitive way of preserving and transporting the meat is rather 

 dangerous, especially if a thaw sets in on the way. It often happens that 

 millions of rubles' worth of meat is damaged owing to defective cold storage 

 en route and at the place of consumption. 



"The war, as has been said, gave rise to endeavors to find a satisfactory 

 solution of the refrigeration question. The Government has decided to build 

 25 slaughterhouses with refrigerating plants in different districts of Russia, 

 and the building of 15 more is under consideration. During the war, the Gov- 

 ernment is to organize and run these establishments. After the war the move- 

 ment now started will necessitate the organization of several meat-trading 

 companies. The big Petrograd Goods Storing, Refrigerating Rooms, and 

 Elevator Company has already started to build large slaughterhouses with 

 refrigerating plants, in the town Biyisk of Siberia. This fact shows that people 

 have begun to realize that there is plenty of room for private enterprise in 

 the systematic meat trade." l 



The Canadian government several years ago enacted a law pro- 

 viding for subsidizing the building of public cold storage warehouses, 

 in the interest of both producers and consumers. The administra- 

 tion of the act was placed under the Minister of Agriculture. 



From the public welfare standpoint, the two paramount 

 questions concerning cold storage are its effects on health and on 

 prices. A great deal of the press comment on cold storage propa- 

 gates the charge that goods preserved by the cold storage method 

 are not only inferior, but are dangerous to public health. Equally 

 common is the press comment that cold storage enables food 

 speculators to withdraw food from the market, hoard it, and force 

 prices up to artificially high levels. The laws of supply and 

 demand, it is charged, are thus set aside. Both these charges are 

 serious and demand attention. 



Influence of Cold Storage on Health. A few abuses have at 

 times arisen in the use of cold storage, as in the use of everything 

 else. But impartial investigations of the subject by eminent 

 chemists and hygienic experts have repeatedly brought in the 

 verdict that cold storage is an important and beneficial method 



1 Summarized from a report made in December, 1916, by M. T. Zaro- 

 chentzeff, secretary of the Moscow Refrigerating Committee, and reported 

 in Daily Commerce Reports, Washington, June 18, 1918, p, 1064. 



