MEAT INSPECTION* 
AND THE ABOLITION OF PRIVATE SLAUGHTERHOUSES 
Being a Paper read in the Section of State Medicine at the Sixty-seventh Annual Meeting of the 
British Medical Association held in Portsmouth, August, 1899. 
By E. PETRONELL MANBY, M.I)., D.P.H. 
Assistant Medical Officer of Health, Liverpool, Lecturer on Public Health, 
UNivERSLfi- College Liverpool 
Introduction 
I am well aware that little that is new can be said on this subject. It has been discussed 
on many occasions and in many places. Why, therefore, should one tell again a twice-told tale ? 
I will give you at once the reason I have in mind in bringing the subject before the State 
Medicine Section of the British Medical Association. 
• It is because at a great gatliering like tlie annual meeting very many medical men are 
present whose direct connection with public health work is slight. That is to say, the majority 
of them are not medical officers of health — a condition the reverse of what obtains at sanitary 
congresses. So that, either at the meeting itself, or througli the medium of our valuable 'Journal,' 
one is to some extent addressing an audience many of whom, perhaps, have not fully considered 
the subject of meat inspection, nor the need in England for improvement in such inspection. 
Now these medical practitioners are in touch with thousands of thinking men and women 
throughout the country, and have infinite powers of forming and influencing public opinion on 
health questions, if they will only use them — powers far greater, perhaps, than they recognize. 
The medical officer of health is primarily concerned with his health committee, and cannot, 
except secondarily, influence private individuals. The iiealth cominittee may approve tlie reports 
of their medical officer, and the town council ma\- confirm the views of the health committee, but 
behind and far above both is the central governing body of the country — Parliament — which is 
not always influenced — I say it in all humbleness — by the opinion of experts, but by its master, 
the 'free and independent elector.' 
No great reforms, sanitary or otherwise, are brought about in this country by a stroke of 
the pen of a high official. They come by the educating of public opinion. Let us, then, lose no 
time in educating public opinion aright on this meat question ; for as an evidence of educating 
power misdirected- -that is perverted education the recent action of Parliament with regard to 
vaccination will occur to every one of us. 
* Reprinted from the 'British Medical Journal,' Sept. 2nd, 1S99. 
