Ifs relation to Consumption in Man. 315 
legislative measures enacted at vai-ious times in other countries. 
The object of the laws passed in different countries m reference 
to tubercle has been the protection and preservation of the 
public health rather than the prevention of the disease among 
animals. The earliest laws relating to the consumption of the flesh 
of diseased animals were those of Moses, and they had reference 
to diseased conditions generally and not to any particular form 
of disease. The same was the case among the Romans ; it was 
the duty of the masters of markets (aadiles) to see that all bad 
and corrupt meat was thrown into the Tiber. In the tenth 
century a Church law was passed forbidding the consumption of 
diseased meat. 
The ancient laws of several continental countries, such as 
Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, forbade the use of diseased 
meat generally. The death of twelve people was recorded by 
Ziickert in 1775, from eating the flesh of cows the viscera of 
which were covered with vesicles, tubercular nodules, and puru- 
lent tumours. Although the expression tubercular nodules was 
used in this instance, it does not by any means follow that the 
diseased conditions were the same as we now designate tubercle. 
In Austria, South Germany, Switzerland, as well as in Belgium 
and France, the flesh of tuberculous animals has always been 
more or less prohibited as food, but m practice it would appear 
that it has generally been only the carcasses with extensive 
lesions that have been condemned. A law of Germany, in 1732, 
imposed a penalty of fifty rix thalers, and, in aggravated cases, 
the addition of corporal punishment, not only for the sale of such 
diseased meat, but also for evading its inspection. 
In 1810 France began to abolish all private slaughter-houses 
in large and medium-sized cities, and to establish public abattoirs 
where efficient inspection of all animals slaughtered for human 
food could be conducted. In many other continental cities a 
similar plan has been adopted. 
In 1875 the Veterinary Council of Germany, and again in 
1878 the Berlin Veterinary School, reported with great reserve 
on the question of the use of the flesh of tuberculous animals as 
food. At that time, and even now, opinion is very much divided 
as to whether the meat of all tuberculous animals should be con- 
demned, or only that of animals in which the disease has spread 
from the primary lesion to other and distant organs. At the 
Veterinary Congress held in Brussels in 1884 the subject was 
discussed, and the conclusions arrived at were that the flesh 
and viscera of a tuberculous animal should only be utilised for 
food in the early stage of the disease, when the lesions are 
confined to a small portion of the body, when the lymphatic 
