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472 TWENTY-SEVENTH ANNEAL MEETING 
nature. For this reason meat inspection becomes a sanitary precaution demand¬ 
ing the attention of State and local boards of health. 
II. In dealing with the question, “ What meat shall be regarded as whole¬ 
some and what as unwholesome,” I think it is essential that we should dis¬ 
tinguish between inspection ante-mortem and post-mortem. I do not mean that 
we should separate these two inspections, for in all critical cases both are re¬ 
quired for an intelligent decision. But in looking over the approved systems of 
veterinary police of the foremost European countries we find that provision is 
made in most of them to directly forbid the consumption of meat of certain dis¬ 
eased animals. The reason for this action seems to be, first, that the use of meat 
in certain diseases is usually fatal; and secondly, that if such meat be used the 
speedy extinction of certain infectious diseases is almost impossible. 
Besides this, we know from statistics in meat inspection that in certain dis¬ 
eases the meat undergoes during life such alteration as to render it, without 
question, unfit for human food. In these cases we should not allow the regular 
slaughtering of the animals under any circumstances, but see that the carcasses 
are effectually destroyed. In other diseases the examination of the living animal 
combihed with post-mortem inspection is necessary to enable us to properly de¬ 
cide whether the flesh may be used for human food or for industrial purposes 
only, or should be totally destroyed. Still there remains a great variety of dis¬ 
eases in which the determination of the wholesomeness of the meat depends en¬ 
tirely upon an examination post-mortem. So large is the number of these dis¬ 
eases that some veterinary officers of the great public slaughter houses count 
them as being about 90 per cent, in the common routine of business. 
With these points in view I will undertake to make a classification of the 
diseases demanding special attention in the practice of meat inspection. 
I. —Diseases in which animals should be condemned, killed and the carcasses 
effectually destroyed. 
(1) Anthrax. (2) Rabies. (3) Septicaemia. (4) Cattle Plague. (5) Glan¬ 
ders. (6) Small pox in sheep. (7) Swine plague and hog cholera. (8) Un¬ 
born animals. 
II. — Diseases in which slaughtering may he permitted to ascertain whether the 
whole or a part of the meat is Jit for human food, or to he used for industrial 
purposes, or to he destroyed. 
(1) Foot and mouth diseases. (2) Tuberculosis in cattle, hogs and chickens. 
(3) Actinomycosis in cattle. (4) Icterus. (5) Milk fever in cows. (6) Hydra- 
thorax and ascites. (7) All diseases which are combined with high fever, general 
emaciation and debility, for instance: pneumonia, enteritis, uteritis, etc. (8) 
Overheated and too young animals, which should be kept for further examina¬ 
tion. 
III. — Diseases ascertainable only after slaughter, and in most cases by the use 
of the microscope. 
(1) Parasitic diseases of meat: Cysticercus cellulosse in hog and deer; 
cysticercus cellulossetaenia med. in cattle ; trichinosis of hogs; actinomycosis of 
hogs; sporospermia and muscle distoma of hogs. (2) Parasitic diseases of those 
which are used as human food : brain, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and organs 
intestines. ( a ) Brain : coenurus celebralis in cattle. ( b ) Heart: the different 
