390 
DISEASED MEAT. 
Not impugning in tlie sliglitest degree the judgment 
of the eourt_, it would be wrong to allow such a case to pass 
unnoticed without reflecting on its exceedingly imperfect 
details^ and the very unsatisfactory^ manner in which the 
bearings of so important a case^ in a professional point of 
view, were elicited. All the information given by the vete¬ 
rinary surgeon was to the effect that the sheep ^4iad suffered 
from a disease called coacle or rot, that had its seat in the 
liverDid he see and examine the liver ? If he did, why 
did he not describe the morbid state of that organ ?—or was it 
a mere speculative opinion of his own, that the animals had 
laboured under the disease he referred to ? AVhv should the 
public be left in the dark, or have to conjecture whether the 
sheep had actually died from the effects of the diseased hepatic 
functions, or been slaughtered before death ? There is a vast 
and well-marked distinction between the appearance of the 
flesh of animals in these two opposite' states. The veterinary 
surgeon merely says that the sheep were quite unfit for con¬ 
sumption, but he is wholly silent as to whether this unfitness 
was caused by natural decomposition or diseased action of a 
vital organ. In short, the profession is altogether unin¬ 
formed as to the precise and particular conditions of the 
carcasses of the sheep—essential points which admit of no 
excuse for the want of pathological and normal description— 
on which so summary a veterinary condemnation was founded. 
The value of a professional opinion depends entirely on 
the valid and rational grounds adduced in its support, and not 
on bare assertion. 
My attention has been drawn to this case, as during my 
practice in the medical profession in the county, many years 
ago, the diseased state of the liver of sheep was prominently 
brought under my notice. In the flocks of sheep reared by 
three extensive landed proprietors in the same county for 
home use—who killed their own mutton, and boasted of the 
superior quality of their five-year-old—after a wet season the 
farm servants who slaughtered the animals, and had been in the 
practice of sending the livers to the kennels, found they had 
become so rotten and diseased and so full of living creatures 
(flukes), that the keepers refused to take them, and actually 
buried them, as being-altogether unfit for dog’s meat. I hap¬ 
pened accidentally to mention the circumstance to one of the 
proprietors at whose table I was in the habit of dining fre¬ 
quently, who made a rigid inquiry, and found the account I 
had given to be as I had stated. He learned that the diseased 
liver had become gradually worse and worse, until it pre¬ 
sented a frightful mass of corruption, He took oflence on his 
