INTEODUCTOEY AND GENEEAL. 35 



well-authenticated facts. It has been proved that the 

 flesh of animals which have been suffering from malig- 

 nant fevers has caused sickness, diarrhoea, febrile symp- 

 toms, and death ; and it has also been proved that the 

 flesh of such animals may sometimes be eaten with ap- 

 parent impunity. Trichinised meat has produced the 

 most disastrous results, and the flesh of animals contain- 

 ing tuberculous deposits is capable of transmitting the 

 disease to carnivorous animals. There is no doubt at all 

 about this; but, at the same time, abundant testimony 

 has been adduced to show that this kind of diseased 

 meat has often been used as food without -any percep- 

 tible evil resulting. 



Our immunity from evil consequences when we con- 

 sume diseased meat appears to rest solely on culinary 

 operations. "We must suppose that by boiling our milk 

 and thoroughly cooking our meat, we destroy these 

 germs as we destroy parasites like Trichinae, which, ac- 

 cording to Cobbold, succumb to a, temperature of 170 to 

 180 degrees Fahr. 



No one can prove that our health is not impaired and 

 ■our lives shortened, by the systematic consumption of 

 •diseased meat, and that many of the ills to which the 

 human race is heir may not be found indirectly to arise 

 from that cause. But as we cannot yet prove that these 

 evils are so produced, and as we cannot afford to throw 

 away anything which appears to be flt for human food, 

 we have no alternative but to get rid of our cattle- 

 diseases in the interests of sanitary science, as well as 

 in those pertaining to agriculture. 



The medical men who reported for the Defence Asso- 

 ciation were Drs. R. Macnamara, Alex Macalister, and 

 J. E. Reynolds. They state : There is no case on record 

 wherein the flesh of cattle slaughtered while suffering 

 from pleuro-pneumonia in any stage has ever been proved 

 to give rise to disease in man. Reynal states that the 

 flesh of animals who have suffered from this disease has 

 been in daily use in Paris for the past twenty years 

 without any appreciable results. Loiset asserts that for 



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