The most simple means of employing dead Animals. 329 



vapor. At the end of two years the grave may be opened, the 

 bones will be found completely denuded of flesh, and fit for the 

 uses which we shall point out hereafter. 



In the same manner may be employed animals which have be- 

 come more or less softened by incipient putrefaction ; in the lat- 

 ter case, they may be made to serve a more useful purpose as ma- 

 nure, by tearing off the flesh with long handled instruments as hedg- 

 ing bills, pitch-forks, &c. then, mixing it with dry earth it is spread, 

 alter having extracted the bones, in thin layers upon ground to be 

 cultivated, or in small heaps among the feet or tufts of different plants 

 at a distance from each other, such as corn, potatoes, tobacco, vines, 

 olive trees, he. All this manure should be covered with earth which 

 absorbs and retains the products of the fermentation and gradually 

 transmits them to the plants. 



Animals which have been bled and sold to the butchers soon after 

 the invasion of non contagious diseases, have never caused any acci- 

 dents either to those who have flayed them or cut them up, nor to 

 those persons who have eaten them. We may cite as examples the 

 oxen and cows slaughtered in great numbers during an epizootia, 

 sheep affected with the rot (a kind of small pox,) all those animals 

 which die rapidly after having been attacked with swellings in mead- 

 ows of wet clover, or in consequence of excessive fatigue : this lat- 

 ter case is besides very analogous to what happens so frequently to 

 those animals which are driven hard in the chase. Animals killed 

 by lightning like those destroyed by disease or fatigue should be very 

 soon skinned and dissected ', the former particularly are subject to 

 putrefaction much more rapidly than those whose deaths may be ow- 

 ing to other causes. 



As to those animals which are not commonly subservient either 

 to the nourishment of man, or other animals ; such as horses, dogs, 

 cats, rats and even polecats, their flesh is not in any manner un- 

 wholesome ; we have often seen workmen feeding upon it, merely 

 adding to it a little more pepper and other spices, in order to dis- 

 guise the peculiar taste of some one of these animals. Polecats in 

 particular have so strong an odor that few persons could be induced 

 to taste them, whatever the seasoning ; but we can bear witness that 

 they may be eaten, without the least danger. 



The greater number of animals should be skinned and dissected 

 in the same manner ; commencing by dividing the skin of the abdo- 

 men throughout its whole length and thickness, from the lower jaw 



