36 



tiou is useless. In the inspection of milk the principal thing is to see the cows that 

 give it, so as to see that they are not diseased, and to inspect it at its place of delivery. 

 (American Analyst, March 28, 1889.) 



From an address read before the State Sanitary Convention of Ohio, 

 by Dr. D. H. Beckwith, of Cleveland, Ohio, member of the State board 

 of health, I take the following : 



In Twinsburg, a physician informed me a few months ago that in visiting a dairy 

 farm he found a cow covered with sores and undoubtedly suffering from tuberculosis, 

 where milk was being shipped to market with that of other cows for consumption. 

 Similar cases are noticed in various parts of the country every day. 



Thomas J. Edge, a special Government agent in Harrisburg, Pa., says in his re- 

 port July 2,1, 1886 : 



"I am not an alarmist, but if citizens could see the cases of tuberculosis which 

 have come to my notice, they would not allow another session of the legislature to 

 pass without at least an attempt to restrict its spread. 



" We have found whole herds and dairies affected to a greater or less degree with 

 this disease. Milk is used from animals scarcely able to stand. That milk from dis- 

 eased animals reaches your city market is so evident that it needs no demonstration ; 

 that no amount of inspection will detect the presence of this disease, is apparent." 



This report is not essentially different from those of other agents in other localities. 

 It is only a wonder, in view of all the facts which have been gathered by observation 

 and examination, that any children in large cities ever reach man's estate. 



A few days ago I attended a family sick with diphtheria. There was no apparent 

 cause for the appearance of the malady about the premises. Upon inquiring I found 

 that children in other neighboring families were suffering from the same dread dis- 

 ease, and I determined to make investigation. It very soon transpired that all of the 

 affected families were being supplied with milk from the same person, who sold to no 

 other families in the neighborhood. 



I then drove out to this man's dairy farm and found my worst suspicions more than 

 well grounded. The condition of affairs was simply indescribable. The entire water- 

 supply came from a stagnant pond, covered with slime and reeking with filth. Several 

 dead animals were floating in the water, partly decomposed. The stalls where the 

 cows were fed, milked, and housed, were filthy in the extreme. No attempt at ven- 

 tilation had been made, and the food was of the poorest quality. No worse condition 

 of affairs could have been possible at the farm. A kind Providence only spared the 

 people whom this man supplied with milk. 



The dangers to which we are exposed from the use of diseased or putrified meats 

 are very great. The flesh of diseased animals is liable to become putrified sooner 

 than that of healthy animals; and the recent discovery of parasites in meat, which 

 is but partially decomposed, where, in short, putrifactive fermentation has but re- 

 cently set in, points to their presence as the cause of the severe effect of sickness pro- 

 duced from the reception of meat in this particular stage into the stomach. 



Dr. Ashmun, the health officer of Cleveland, informed me that during the past year 

 that from fourteen to fifteen cases were poisoned from eating pork that was infected 

 with trichina. 



* * * * * * ' * 



To diagnose trichinosis is no easy task. The symptoms in connection with the dis- 

 covery of the parasite itself, in the suspected food, and removing a portion of the 

 muscle of the patient and placing it under a microscope, will reveal the real trouble. 



The Chicago Academy of Science, a few years since, examined portions of muscles 

 taken from 1,394 hogs in different packing houses and butcher shops in Chicago. 

 They found trichina in the muscles of twenty-eight hogs. From these examinations 

 and observations they came to the conclusion that in the hogs brought to this city, 

 one in fifty was more or less affected with these parasites now on exhibition before 



