INTRODUCTION. O 



should be more widely diffused is illustrated by the indisputable 

 fact that many people would be far more careful if they knew 

 what risks they run in eating meat which has not been properly 

 cooked. Many of the dangers which are apt to arise might in 

 many cases be avoided if all meat were thoroughly subjected to 

 the purifying thereby ensured. Underdone meat, and especially 

 underdone beef, veal, and pork, are stringently to be avoided. 

 There can be but very little doubt that the abstention from pork 

 on the part of the Jews, as also many other, at first sight, inex- 

 plicable customs of different nations, had its origin in matured 

 judgment begotten of experience. It is not at all uncommon to 

 find, on careful scrutiny, that many animals liable to be used for 

 food are infested with tape- worms in different stages of their life- 

 history. 



If those who are so fond of dogs as occasionally to indulge in 

 the at first sight apparently harmless but in reality most dange- 

 rous habit of allowing them to eat from the platters to be em- 

 ployed afterwards at their own tables, had the barest notion of 

 the results which might therefrom ensue, they would certainly 

 abstain from such folly. They would carefully avoid the 

 dangerous practice of caressing and kissing their pets. If they 

 would read the late Professor Cobbold's most valuable work on 

 helminthology, the eyes of some ladies would certainly be opened 

 in a somewhat startling manner, especially if they knew in what 

 way all the best authorities explain the fact that so many Ice- 

 landers are infested with their horrible and uninvited guests. 

 Some people, however, scarcely know there are such things as 

 tape-worms, and certainly only those who have seen patients sub- 

 jected to their presence can form any idea of the inconvenience 

 and danger resulting from their unwelcome abode inside the 

 human frame. 



From these and other considerations it may be seen how very 

 important it is to be able to decide when meat is fit and when 

 unfit for human food. 



Before passing on, we may pause to refer briefly to the diffe- 

 rent contagious diseases of animals which still existed in the 

 country at the end of 1887. We cannot do better than give a 

 short abstract of the observations relating to that subject which 

 appear in that best of papers. The Times (which, by the way, 

 we congratulate most sincerely on the recent coming round of 



