384 
ON PHTHISIS IN COWS. 
to work immediately to fatten these cows, and, as soon as they 
are got into tolerable condition, they send them to the butcher. 
From time immemorial, we have consumed in Paris the flesh 
of cows labouring under pulmonary phthisis in its first stage, 
and we have regarded it as coming from cows in good condition, 
and as good cow-beef. 
But this is not all: in these consumptive cows, in which the 
dairymen have sufliered the fiist favourable moments of fattening 
to pass by, and in which the malady has continued to progress, 
acute pulmonary inflammation is suddenly superadded to 
the original chronic inflammation, and the owner well knows 
that the beast would perish in a few days if it were not sold to 
the butcher at an inferior price. When these cows are examined 
after death, their lunos are found to be filled with tubercles—the 
pleural membranes are tuberculous—their naturally free surfaces 
are agglutinated together by organized bands—they are covered 
by false membranes, more or less dense—they are moistened by 
a bloody fluid of the colour of lees of wine—the tubercles in the 
substance of the lungs have sometimes already formed them¬ 
selves into abscesses, and have an oflPensive smell—and a great 
portion of the remaining part of the lung, although less dis¬ 
eased, is hepatized. In this state of things, the butcher casts 
aside the lungs, the pericardium, and the mediastinum—the parts 
of the ribs and the diaphragm, the pleura of which was covered 
with false membranes—and he sells all the rest as the usual meat 
of the second quality. This commerce has always been carried 
on in the neighbourhood of Paris, and in Paris itself, before the 
building of the abattoirs; and although we could never persuade 
ourselves that that meat was not bad, we have no proof that it 
was injurious to health. 
If, however, we inquire into other analogous circumstances, 
we shall meet with a crowd of facts which appear to prove the 
harmlessness of this kind of food, this meat of the second quality, 
when taken from sick animals, or even from those that have 
died of disease. 
In the dreadful epizootic that destroyed so many cattle from 
1814 to 1816, the city of Paris was constantly supplied—rich 
and poor, without exception, and for the space of many entire 
months—with the flesh of animals that had been attacked by the 
typhous, contagious epizootic, and of others often that had died 
before they were sent to the slaughter-house; yet during that 
time no serious disease that could be attributed to that cause 
appeared in Paris. 
The greater part of wandering poor shepherds, informer times, 
and in those countries where they now exist, only kill for the 
