2i 4 THE PRESERVATION OF MEAT, ETC. 



ing conserve is known in South America under the names of 

 pemmican, charque, and tassajo. The process is as simple as it 

 is reliable, and has a great future in prospect, especially for the 

 provisioning of armies in the field. In the method of treatment 

 hitherto practised, the meat during drying suffers a great depre- 

 ciation in flavour, but in recent years Hofmann and Meinert have 

 devised and patented a process for the artificial drying of meat 

 without removing or destroying its flavouring matters. By this 

 process a Bremen firm manufactures a meat meal met with in 

 commerce under the name of Carne pura. 



Under the same name inferior meat meals only fit for cattle 

 food are shipped to Europe from Argentina ; these are prepared 

 from waste materials and require some care in handling. The 

 drying of flesh does not, of course, result in the killing of all the 

 bacteria present therein, and if the flesh of cattle suffering from 

 epidemic diseases has been employed, then, under the defective 

 conditions of live stock inspection in South America, disease germs 

 will be disseminated by means of such infected food. A case of 

 this kind has been reported by R. BURRI (I.). 



The most important example of dried flesh is afforded by the 

 dried cod-fish (stock-fish), which forms the chief article of ex- 

 port from the Scandinavian peninsula. It contains, in the dry 

 state, nearly 80 per cent, of albumin, and constitutes a favourite 

 and cheap article of food among the poorer classes in Central 

 Europe. 



The salting and pickling of meat is generally credited with 

 great efficacy, but a closer examination reveals that it is really 

 only the hygroscopicity of the salt that comes into play and that 

 the sole power the latter possesses is that of setting up plasmolysis 

 in the germs present in, or subsequently conveyed to, the flesh, 

 and so preventing their reproduction. Consequently the germs, 

 especially those of a pathogenic nature, cannot be completely killed 

 by these processes. C. J. DE FREYTAG (I.) has proved that the 

 influence of concentrated solutions of common salt is resisted by 

 tubercule bacilli for three months ; by typhus bacilli for six 

 months ; and by the bacilli of swine erysipelas for two months, 

 the organisms remaining alive and virulent during these periods. 

 F. PEUCH (I.) examined the effect of salting on the flesh of animals 

 succumbing to anthrax, and found that a ham from such an animal, 

 after lying in salt water for fourteen days, still contained virulent 

 anthrax bacilli, as was proved by direct experiment on animals 

 with the expressed juices of the meat. PETRI (II.) showed that 

 virulent "rothlauf" (erysipelas) bacilli were still present in the 

 pickled flesh from swine affected with swine erysipelas, after six 

 months' immersion in brine. 



If the inspection of meat is carried out with even only a mode- 

 rate amount of care, it will not be easy for animals suffering from 

 anthrax to be slaughtered for food ; so that there is not much 



