270 



FARMER'S CYCLOPEDIA OF LIVE STOCK 



MEAT INSPECTION 



It is quite unnecessary to insist upon 

 the tremendous importance of meat pro- 

 duction in this country. Both home 

 consumption and the demand for our 

 meats abroad increases year by year. 

 With 44,000,000 beef cattle, worth $670,- 

 000,000, and 47,000,000 hogs, worth 

 $284,000,000, we naturally have an im- 

 portant function to perform in the reg- 

 ulation of these food products. In 1905, 

 nearly 66,000,000 animals were inspected 

 by the Bureau of Animal Industry. 

 There were labeled and tagged 22,000,- 

 000 quarters of beef, 8,000,000 mutton 

 carcasses, 845,000 veal carcasses, 1,000,- 

 000 hogs, and 800,000 sacks of pork. 

 At the same time, 66,846 stock cars were 

 inspected, and 824,914 live cattle, 423,- 

 780 sheep, and 2,358 horses for export. 

 Danger from eating diseased meat — 

 During the past few years there has 

 been an unusual agitation for the purity 

 of food products. From the standpoint 

 of human health, meat is one of the 

 most important food products. ^ Its im- 

 portance in the human diet is gener- 

 ally recognized and the necessity of reg- 

 ulating traffic in meat is becoming more 

 obvious to all concerned. The chief 

 purpose of meat inspection, as stated 

 by Ostertag, is to protect man against 

 the dangers from eating diseased or 

 harmful meat. These dangers are quite 

 numerous, but the most striking are 

 found in the possibility of transmitting 

 infectious diseases (tuberculosis, an- 

 thrax, glanders, rabies, septicaemia, pye- 

 mia, etc), toxic diseases (meat poison- 

 ing, sausage poisoning, etc), or animal 

 parasites (trichina, tapeworms, etc). 

 In the following paragraphs we may 

 briefly consider some of these dangers 

 from eating meat. 



Diseases transmitted in meat: — Tuber- 

 culosis may be acquired by man by 

 eating tuberculous organs. Tubercle 

 bacilli are seldom found in the muscle 

 tissue proper or in the blood. The 

 lymphatic glands in the muscles, how- 

 ever, are often infected, and tubercles are 

 frequently found in the vital organs and 

 on the lining membrane of the body cav- 

 ity and chest. It is not necessary that 

 the whole carcass of a tuberculous ani- 

 mal be condemned. It is often sufficient 

 merely to remove the affected organs or 

 sometimes a badly diseased quarter, or 

 the lining of the body cavities, together 

 with the lymphatic glands, may be care- 

 fully removed. Where the disease is 



generalized or distributed throughout 

 the body the whole carcass is to be con- 

 demned, but where the disease is local, 

 affecting only one or a few organs, the 

 meat is undoubtedly harmless. Organs 

 affected with lymphadenitis, especially 

 in sheep, should be excluded from the 

 market. 



Actinomycosis, also called big jaw in 

 cattle, affects chiefly the jaw, throat and 

 tongue of cattle and the udder of hogs. 

 Rarely the disease becomes generalized, 

 in which case the whole carcass is un- 

 fit for food; otherwise, merely the af- 

 fected parts should be rejected. It is 

 not definitely known whether actinomy- 

 cosis may be transmitted from animals 

 to man. There is apparently no danger 

 to human health from eating the meat 

 of animals affected with botryomycosis, 

 cattle plague, malignant catarrhal 

 fever, pleuro-pneumonia, broncho-pneu- 

 monia, blackleg, braxy, dysentery in 

 calves, calf diphtheria, swine erysipelas, 

 urticaria, swine plague, hog cholera, 

 fowl cholera, or roup; for man is not 

 subject to these diseases. Nevertheless 

 the meat from such cases is utterly un- 

 fit for food if the disease has assumed a 

 generalized form, or is in an acute stage, 

 or is accompanied with fever. 



Glanders is not easily transmitted in 

 meat. During the siege of Paris thou- 

 sands of glanderous horses were eaten 

 without harm. Man may become in- 

 fected with glanders, however, and all 

 glanderous horses should be destroyed as 

 soon as the disease is detected. More- 

 over, in this country little horse meat 

 is eaten, nearly all of the small amount 

 slaughtered being shipped abroad. Ap- 

 parently rabies cannot be transmitted in 

 eating the meat. Infection may arise 

 in cutting it up, however, and such meat 

 is to be absolutely excluded from the 

 market. 



Sheeppox in a benign form does not 

 render the meat dangerous. Likewise 

 no harm has even been observed from 

 eating the meat of animals affected with 

 cowpox. 



Foot and mouth disease — While man 

 may readily become infected with foot 

 and mouth disease, the meat from such 

 cases is not dangerous. All parts of 

 the body bearing erosions are highly 

 dangerous. Even in cases of anthrax, 

 the meat is usually harmless when eaten, 

 but infection may readily occur in han- 

 dling or cutting the meat if the hands 

 bear scratches or wounds. Similarly 



