THE 
VETERINARIAN. 
V0L. XXXVI. 
No.427. 
JULY, 1863. 
Fourth Series. 
No. 103. 
Communications and Cases. 
DISEASED MEAT. 
A Letter from John Henton, M.D., L.Il.C.S.E., &c., 
Edinburgh. 
Gentlemen^ —At page 314 of your number for May last 
there is a report of a case^ headed, ^^Unwholesome Meat— 
Rot in Sheep/^ tried at Plymouth Guildhall, on a complaint 
at the instance of the inspector of nuisances against a butcher 
for exposing for sale six sheep unfit for human food.^^ The 
Board of Health had given the necessary instructions for 
prosecution for the good of the public; and it is stated that, 
although the law was very severe against the offence of 
exposing for sale the carcasses of sheep, which were totally 
unfit for any human being to eat,^^ as these were represented 
to be, yet the board very unaccountably expressed a wish 
not to press the case against the defendant, although he 
w'ell deserved the severest penalty the law could inflict,^'' 
and would be content, if the magistrates issued an order ^Hor 
the carcasses of the sheep to be destroyed.^^ The evidence in 
support of the charge was supplied by the inspector, who 
observed in defendants shop six sheep that had just been 
brought in, and he thought they looked very diseased.^^ He 
called in a veterinary surgeon, who deposed that the sheep 
were quite unfit for the consumption of human beings, and 
had suffered from a disease called coade’^ or rot, which had 
its seat in the liver, and which was very prevalent among 
sheep this season. A butcher of thirty years^ experience gave 
similar evidence. The Bench ordered the carcasses to be 
immediately destroyed. 
XXXVI. 
26 
