INTRODUCTORY AND GENERAL. 33 



Chumars, who for twenty-five hundred years have by 

 law eaten all the cattle of India,, dying by whatever 

 disease." 



M. Decroix (a confirmed hippophagist in France for 

 twenty years), argues strongly that diseased animals are 

 not unwholesome, and enters somewhat generally into 

 the argument. M. Decroix made it a practice to eat the 

 cooked flesh of horses killed in his service, which had 

 had glanders or farcy, and, whether thoroughly or parti- 

 ally cooked, he found no evil results to his health. He 

 has even gone further than this in his inquisitorial 

 experiments as to whether the flesh of animals which 

 have died was unwholesome. Ever since 1861 he has 

 eaten the flesh cooked of all animals that have died 

 within his reach, no matter from whatever disease. 

 Desirous of ascertaining whether the flesh of cattle, 

 sheep, and calves, seized by the inspectors of meat in 

 Paris was really unwholesome, for six months he re- 

 ceived from M. Chevreul, Director of the Jardin des 

 Plantes, parts of the flesh thus seized, and given to the 

 beasts of the menagerie. Several times a week during 

 this period, he ate of this flesh, without any inconveni- 

 ence to his health, except certain timid apprehensions 

 and the natural ppugnance resulting from prejudice. 

 After a personal experience of fifteen or twenty years, 

 and a number of observations collected from others, he 

 affirms that one may eat with impunity the flesh cooked 

 (not putrid) of any of the domestic animals, no matter 

 vsfhat they had died of — ^glanders, typhus, hydrophobia, 

 etc. Instead of the flesh of animals which have died 

 naturally having a more repugnant appearance or a 

 particular flavour, he states that he has placed the two 

 kinds side by side in the same stew-pan, and with the 

 same sauce, and in serving to different persons, many of 

 them connoisseurs, the meat of the animals that have 

 died has invariably been found superior to that of meat 

 from the slaughter-houses. If the flesh of animals 

 which have died, or were diseased, is unwholesome, he 

 and those to whom he has given it, would have beeu 



