OBJECTIONS. 25 



the ornnworOj according to the degree in which they 

 have fed on matters animal or vegetable. For instance, 

 that of pigs fattened on flesh furnishes fat soft, oily, 

 and of indifferent quality ; those receiving grain give 

 excellent lard. 



Applying these principles to the horse, we conclude 

 that its flesh should be salubrious and agreeable. The 

 researches of several chemists, and of Liebig in parti- 

 cular, prove that its constituent elements are those of 

 beef, with the exception of its having a slight excess 

 of the highly nutritious principle called kreatine. 



Experience tells us the same. The societies for the 

 protection of animals at Vienna, Berlin, Hamburg, Brus- 

 sels, Copenhagen, and at other places where horse- 

 flesh is regularly sold in special butcheries, all declare 

 that it has led to no inconvenience, and most of them 

 express the wish that the use of it may be extended. 

 So much for what science, reason, and experience de- 

 clare on behalf of hippophagy. Let us now see what 

 are some of the objections. 



If, it is said, horse-flesh were really good, it would 

 have come into use long ago. They who so speak know 

 not what they say, and enable an opponent to retort 

 that it must be good, seeing that, among many na- 

 tions, it has been eaten for three thousand years ; or, 

 to speak more correctly, it has at one time or an- 

 other been eaten all over the world, as M. Isidore 

 Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire has learnedly and unquestionably 

 demonstrated. 



A more serious objection is that the horse is subject 

 to frightful diseases glanders and farcy, which may be 

 communicated by contagion. But for twenty years the 

 contagiousness of glanders has been doubted by many; 

 and the occurrence of this disease is much less common 

 than formerly. And now so rare is it in Paris, that it 

 is often difficult to procure a case of it for scientific 

 purposes. But if it were as common as it is rare, it is 

 easy to guard against it, just as the public is protected 



