ON PHTHISIS IN (’OWS. 
385 
purpose of food, animals that are sick, consumptive, or that 
would soon die, and that would be rejected with disgust by 
other people. 
Finally, examples might be cited in which, when animals have 
died of putrid diseases, the butchers that destroyed them, and 
the soldiers that cooked them for food, have been infected and 
have perished, but that meat has been eaten by their comrades 
without the slightest ill consequence. It appeared that the cook¬ 
ing destroyed the virus, and rendered the flesh of these animals 
apparently harmless-when taken as food. 
Happily, these putrid diseases in,cattle are now rare in Paris, 
and there has not been for a long time any example of either 
butcher or cook being affected with malignant pustules from 
handling: the flesh of diseased animals. 
You will not draw from these facts the conclusion, that I do 
not think it necessary that any surveillance should be exerted 
over the sale of butchers’ meat. I think, on the contrary, that 
that surveillance should be as active as possible, and that the 
low price of this kind of food should not induce poor families 
to make it their principal or habitual food. We know that bad 
food which may be taken once without inconvenience, may be¬ 
come, by constant use, the cause of disease; and we know also, 
that the flesh of animals which has undergone the commence¬ 
ment of putrefaction, may, in some cases, produce the most 
serious mischief with regard to the persons that touch it. 
1 think, then, that with regard to the case of which I am now 
treating, the mayor should watch with the greatest care the 
sale of animal food by the butchers and dealers ; that he ought 
to destroy all the food which he finds on the premises of these 
men which is of bad quality; that he ought to forbid the sale 
of the flesh of every sick animal, and, for a much stronger 
reason, of every dead animal, unless a veterinary surgeon and a 
physician, appointed by government, should decide that such 
food may be eaten without danger. 
The injunction to the butcher not to sell any sick animal, and 
especially any dead one, unless permission to do so has been 
accorded to him after the inspection of a physician and a 
veterinary surgeon, would render the sale of this kind of food 
difficult, if the local authorities would exercise due vigilance. 
In Paris, the regulations of the abattoirs w^ould render all fraud 
of this kind almost impossible. In the country communes a 
little surveillance on the part of the proper officers would render 
the attempt rare, and generally fruitless. 
Finally, I think that, under all the circumstances, and putting 
VO I,. VI 11 . 3 r; 
