i6 
CHARLES MOROT. 
The revolution of 1789 brought with the suppression of the 
corporations into France, the abolition of the old regulations 
suggested by experience to prevent the abuses of the butcher 
trade. From this date, as affirmed by the celebrated hygienist 
Fodere, in 1813,* butchers no longer obeyed the regulations, 
and knew no others aside from their own will; they opened 
slaughter-houses all over, and being no longer watched, ignored, 
especially in small towns, all rules of salubrity; hence the 
necessity of renewing the above regulations by force, and of re¬ 
establishing the functions of inspector of butcheries, a function 
which in fact is in large cities entrusted to police agents, but 
which is left entirely to the direction of the butchers in towns 
of the third and fourth order, to the great detriment of the 
citizens. In 1885, Delachenal regretted, as had Fodere, the 
disappearance of the police measures of the middle ages in 
relation to butcheries and bakeries. He said: “Some of those 
old regulations ought to be re-enforced, since, through the neg¬ 
lect of their enforcement, the old abuses which they were 
intended to remedy have been been able more vigorously to 
resist the influence of time.f 
It is to be deplored that in our progressive epoch we are at 
times compelled to look back regretfully upon the hygiene of 
the old times, instead of being able to recognize all around us 
no only the continued existence of the former sanitary food 
police, but also its adaptation to the exigencies of modern 
science, the existing customs, and the territorial and political 
organizations of the various countries. 
Owing to the almost complete absence during the middle 
ages of scientific data upon the pathology of animals used for 
food, it is easy to understand why the inspection of meat was 
entrusted exclusively to persons familiar only with abattoir 
work, or to mere police employees. But that which is less 
easily understood is that in some countries, especially in France, 
*Dr, Fodere—Traite de Medecine Legale, Vol. vi., Paris, 1813, p. 291. 
^Bulletin de l’Academie, Delphinale, Vol. xx., 1885, Grenoble, 1886, p. 300. 
