1869. 



NEW ENGLAND FARRIER. 



175 



IS PORK UNCIiBAN? 



You liare no doubt read the enclosed article en 

 titled "Pork Unci an," as well as hundreds of your 

 readers, it having been extensively circulated by 

 a party lecturing in this vicinity on health, &c. 



You, no doubt, with your experience, know if 

 the statement made is true or not. Is it a fact, 

 that every hog has "corruption flowing from his 

 feet like drainage from a sewer ?" oris it true that 

 "nothing but man will cat pork," or that "lard is 

 the quintessence of scrofulous extract, &c., &c. ?" 

 Do kt us know if these named statements are true 

 or false. A Reader. 



Medford, Mass., Feb., 1869. 



Remarks. — "We do not believe that one-half of 

 the article enclosed to us, about pork, is true. In 

 the first place the v/riter quotes the old lawgiver, 

 Moses, as his authority that pork is unclean. He 

 reasons upon the supposition that Moses interdict- 

 ed the use of certain animals because they were 

 unwholesome. Such, in our opinion, was not the 

 piincipal cause. His intention was to wean the 

 Israelites from their entire dependence upon their 

 animals for food, which is usual among nomad 

 people, and to introduce new wants which only 

 agriculture could supply. 



In the second place, the object of this interdic- 

 tion was, to discourage any friendly intercouse be- 

 tween the Israelites and the idolatrous nations 

 around them, and nothing could be better calcu- 

 lated than this, and other dietetic regulations, to 

 prevent them from joining in the festivities and 

 social entertainments of their neighbors. The 

 Jews abstained from eating animals which their 

 neighbors did eat, and which we eat at this day ; 

 and in the same manner, we refrain from various 

 animals, not at all unfit for food, which the Jews 

 did eat and which are eaten in other countries. 

 We do not eat horses, dogs, cats, snails and grass- 

 hoppers, all of which are good for food, and are 

 more or less eaten in different countries, although 

 from not being used to them, we should regard 

 their meat, if set on a table, with as much abhor- 

 rence as a Jew or Mohammedan could manifest 

 with regard to pork. The great object Moses had 

 in view was, to change the character of the Israel- 

 ites from that of a nomad or wandering people, to 

 that of an agricultural people, with a fixed home. 



In Deuteronomy, xiv., 8, Moses saj^s : — "And 

 the swine, because it divideth the hoof, yet chew- 

 eth not the cud, it is unclean unto you : ye shall 

 not eat of their flesh." And he said the same of 

 the hare and the cone^ in the preceding verse. 

 This could not have been because either of them 

 were unfit for food. These and other interdictions 

 were intended to make their new country neces- 

 sary to the Israelites, so as to render it impossible 

 for them to abandon it for any other, or to resume 

 their former mode of life. As an evidence of this, 

 in the 21st verse of the same chapter, Moses says : 



"Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself: 

 thou Shalt give it unto the stranger that is within 

 thy gates that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell 

 it unto an alien : for thou art an holy people unto 

 the Lord thy God." 



This seems to us decisive proof of the truthful- 

 ness of the position which we have taken. Moses 

 was an upright man. If he supposed that the 

 flesh of an animal that "died of itself" was impure 

 and unwholesome, would lie give it to the inno- 

 cent stranger who was a visitor among the people, 

 or sell it to the alien who might be poisoned by it i" 

 By no means, Moses was no such double-dealing 

 person. 



Again, in speaking of the hog, the writer of the 

 article sent to us, assuming the air of an astute 

 naturalist saj's : — "Examine the inside of his fore 

 legs, a few inches above his feet, and look at the 

 open sores or issues provided by nature to drain 

 off a part of the vile, scrofulous ichor from his cor- 

 rupt and filthy body." Has not this delicate writer 

 the same provision on his own legs, and all over 

 his body ? If rot, his own skin would soon be 

 covered with the "mange, tetter and scurf" which 

 he ascribes to the. poor hog. Does he not know 

 that the hog never sweats, and that these issues 

 subserve the purposes of perspiration ? It would 

 be well for this critic to read the Bible more care- 

 fully, and a volume or two on natural history and 

 physiology before he questions the wisdom of God 

 in the creation of HiS works. In wisdom He made 

 them all — the hog included. When circumstances 

 permit, the hog is a neat animal. None like a dry, 

 clean bed better, and none will keep it cleaner. 

 He has his trichine, it is true ; so has the ox his 

 "warbles" and pleuro-pneumonia; the cow, the 

 "cow-pox ;" the sheep, the foot-rot, ticks and cuta- 

 neous eruptions, but when properly fed and tended 

 all are good as food for man. 



We are aware of the opinions which have always 

 prevailed in the East with regard to the use of 

 pork. LiU'ge quantities of fat meat of any kind 

 would probably prove unwholesome, and particu- 

 larly so to persons subject to leprosy and other 

 cutaneous diseases, as the Israelites seem to have 

 been. The warmer the climate, the less need is 

 there of a meat diet ; while in a cold one, a larger 

 proportion of flesh and fat as food is best. 



It is quite probable that in the East swine were 

 permitted to run at large, as they do at the present 

 day in the cities in our Southern States. There 

 they feed mainly upon all sorts of foul garbage; 

 are kicked about by men and horses, stoned by- 

 boys and hunted through the hot sun by dogs ; are 

 overfed one day and starved the next, and by 

 these circumstances, and the great variations in 

 temperature to which they are subjected, may 

 contra\;t diseases, and their flesh be unwholesome. 



But It is not so among the farmers of New Eng- 

 land. Their swine are generally comfortably 

 housed, fed regularly upon wholesome, nutritious 

 food in variety, provided with pure water and salt, 

 and during the summer season are daily supplied 

 with fresh weeds, tender grass, milk, a little grain 

 and uncooked vegetables. They live quietly, grow 

 and fatten rapidly, and at ten or twelve months 

 old furnish the cleanest, sweetest and as whole- 



