400 Transactions of the American Institute. 



business was carried on upon the premises. It was in July; the 

 door being open on a level with the ground, and the operative 

 gone to dinner ; it was discovered to be a Bologna sausage 

 manufactory. A huge collection of bones was noticeable, from 

 which fragments of tainted meat had been scraped off and thrown 

 into a circular pit. A wheel of eight feet in diameter, the periphery 

 studded with chopping knives, was turned, like a cider-mill, by 

 horse-power. Sweet herbs, pepper, millions of flies and hungry ver- 

 min were ground up together, and the disgusting compound, after 

 being moved, with barn shovels, into tubs that did not appear to 

 have ever been washed, was finally forced into prepared intestines, 

 offensive to every sense, to be smoked and packed for market. There 

 are gastric inflammations, nausea, disturbed conditions of the bowels, 

 eruptions, and, no doubt, fatal forms of scrofula, generated by sau- 

 sages. There are, doubtless, many honest city sausage-makers, but 

 how are they to be known ? That old joke about the disappearance 

 of cats and dogs, even were it true that they are sometimes made into 

 sausages, would not, in a sanitary aspect, be as objectionable as those 

 made of tainted scraps. 



It has not been discovered that individuals, when driven by stress 

 of circumstances to subsist on reptiles, were in any way injured. The 

 Sandwich Islanders, in the time of Captain Cook, and the dog-eaters 

 of China, were as perfectly nourished as they would have been on other 

 diet. 



A cat was served for me in Damascus, which I supposed to be 

 rabbit ; nor should I have known to the contrary, had not a gentle- 

 man assured me he saw the claws cut off; and, the day after, the 

 very thought of dining on a tom-cat produced nausea. Such is the 

 force of habit and early associations. 



Should any one dare sell horse-flesh in New York, he would doubt- 

 less be promptly prosecuted ; and there are medical gentlemen who 

 might give an opinion that it was unwholesome and improper food, 

 and perhaps detrimental to the public health ; yet there were eight 

 markets in Paris last year in which horse beef was sold exclusively. 



"We all consume too much meat. The public health would improve 

 were people satisfied with having it once a day, instead of twice or 

 three times, as thousands do, under an impression they positively 

 require it. Public health in great cities largely depends on the kind 

 and quality of the food consumed by the masses. Beyond question, 

 much sickness, individual suffering, and even mortality, have an 

 origin in a vital effort to dislodge and throw off various improper 



