204 DISEASES OF SWINE 



ever stop to think why this is done? It is simply because most of 

 these places are so filthy and dirty, and emit such an abominable 

 stench, that if located near the public highway they would be 

 declared a dangerous nuisance and the owners would be forced 

 to clean up. Yet we are eating meat every day which is slaugh- 

 tered in these dirty holes by butchers who are often not much 

 more cleanly than the plants in which they are working. These 

 conditions should not be tolerated. A slaughter-house can be 

 kept clean just as well as any other place of business, and the 

 residents in every community should make it their business to see 

 that it is kept so. The city residents who eat the meat should insist 

 that their food be handled in a cleanly manner in a clean place, and 

 farmers should be equally strong in insisting that the disease- 

 carrying offal from these establishments shall not be thrown into 

 the creeks and rivulets to carry disease to the herds along its 

 course. There is no reason why the farmers of this country 

 should suffer hundreds of thousands of dollars of loss every year 

 just because it will cost the butchers a few dollars and a little 

 effort to keep their slaughter-houses clean. 



As a matter of actual fact, a central slaughtering plant, owned 

 either co-operatively by the butchers or by the city and con- 

 ducted on a self-supporting basis by charging so much per head 

 for each animal dressed, is in the end cheaper than a number of 

 small private plants, far more sanitary and convenient, and 

 insures a clean, wholesome meat-supply to the city. 



As another example of how easy it is for a stream to become 

 contaminated with the virus of cholera, even when it is not di- 

 rectly infected by the dead bodies of cholera animals, I would call 

 attention to the following outbreak which occurred in southern 

 Wisconsin a few seasons ago: 



The outbreak occurred in a wealthy farming community, 

 in which there was the ever-present small stream, which flowed 

 through the pastures and feed lots of a number of farmers and 

 stock raisers along its course. The farm on which the disease first 

 made its appearance, however, was not located directly upon the 

 course of the stream, but upon a hillside, nearly a quarter of a 

 mile above. Here the disease made its appearance during the 

 winter months when the ground was covered with snow, and, while 



