342 
CHARACTERS OF DISEASED ANIMAL FOOD. 
readily retains the impression of the finger. Such meat decomposes very 
rapidly, and. contracts a putrid odour, which increases with time. M. Sou- 
mille has seen it even become black in two days. The meat can be cooked, 
but it is always soft and tasteless. In stormy seasons, the south winds ex- 
ercise a pernicious influence on meat, especially lamb and veal. Beef and 
mutton escape ; but they yield a broth deficient in nutritive materials. In 
winter, during severe frosts, meat is sometimes frozen ; it then becomes 
very rigid ; when cut with the knife, drops of coloured fluid exude from 
each fibre ; it resists cooking, and does not cease to yield water. It ought 
not therefore to be consumed as food, being tasteless and indigestible. In 
the violent heat of summer, meat soon becomes black and decomposed more 
or less rapidly ; the rapidity of the decomposition depends on the previous 
condition of the animals and on their food. In Avignon and the neighbour- 
hood, fresh beef sometimes exhales an odour of onions ; this is ascribed to 
the presence in the pastures of a plant of that kind. 
The circumstances enabling us to determine whether an animal has died 
a natural death, are, when it is entire, the presence of disease of the viscera, 
non-coagulation of the blood in the vessels, accumulation of blood in the vessels 
of the great intestinal cavities, and sanguineous injection of the vessels of 
the cellular tissue. Separate portions of the meat are red, yield blood when 
cut into, and are of various colours on the surface. Nearly the same charac- 
ters are observed, differing in intensity, in the flesh of animals which have 
been slaughtered after over-driving or deficient food. M. Soumille insists 
especially on the injection of the muscular flesh ; but he does not consider 
that any real distinction can be drawn between a piece of meat taken from 
an animal which has been slaughtered after fatigue and from one which has 
died of disease. The former may be eaten ; the latter ought to be rejected, 
although, from experiments on dogs, cats, ducks, and fowls, M. Soumille 
does not think it likely to produce mischief. 
3. Examination of the entire animal, so that the viscera may be inspected, 
is the only means of ascertaining whether it has died of charbon y peripneu- 
monia, or consumption. In sheep attacked with rot, examined when whole, 
the cellular tissue is infiltrated and riddled with small apertures. The flesh 
of sheep affected with dropsical cachexia is infiltrated with serous fluid, 
flabby, and colourless. Measled pork is easily recognized by the presence 
of small, whitish granulations on the cut surface of the meat, especially in 
the lean portion : on exposure to the fire, a crackling sound is produced by 
the bursting of the little vesicles. In other respects, — as regards colour, 
smell, and consistency, measled meat has no peculiar characteristics. 
M. Soumille does not consider that it resists the process of cooking, that it 
yields a turbid, tasteless broth, or that it produces indigestion, diarrhoea, or 
other diseases. On the other hand, he admits that sausages made of it dry 
with difficulty, continue good for a shorter time, and soon become black and 
rancid, if not kept in a dry place. 
4. M. Soumille would forbid the use of the meat of animals whose lean- 
ness is coincident with disease, old age, and paleness of the flesh. He also 
proscribes, although persuaded of its harmlessness, the meat of animals that 
have been fatigued, or have not been sufficiently bled before being slaugh- 
tered, on account of its tendency to decomposition. 
5. The last question received no rigorous answer. 
Gazette des Hopitaux , October 14, 1854. 
If an investigation of the means of detecting bad food is 
important in France, it is at least equally so in this country, 
the natives of which are proverbially more “ beef-eaters” than 
their Gallic neighbours. As an instance of the amount of 
