YORKSHIRE VETERINARY MEDICAL SOCIETY. 
441 
all times, inasmuch as an animal that has suffered from some purely me¬ 
chanical lesion, and undergone more or less exhaustion, the meat of such 
will be more or less soft and moist, but still fit for food. I maintain the 
more an animal suffers from irritative fever and exhaustion that you have 
a corresponding amount of softening of the muscular and other tissues. 
Take, for example, a horse which has been over-driven, and dies from sheer 
exhaustion. On post-mortem examination, we find the whole of the internal 
organs and muscular tissues soft, hence the wisdom of allowing animals to 
rest after a fatiguing journey before slaughtering them. Another erroneous 
practice of condemning mentis from its dark colour. Now, meat may have a 
dark appearance and yet fit for human food, inasmuch as an animal that has 
been chased and heated, and then immediately killed, will be more or less 
flabby and dark coloured. Again, an animal which has suffered from irritative 
fever or any internal lesion, the carcase will have a tendency to be dark 
coloured. I believe it sometimes happens that as soon as the animal 
is struck with the pole-axe, death takes place at the heart, consequently, 
bleeding under such circumstances will not be favorable, and the meat 
will have a dark appearance. Even under the most favorable circum¬ 
stances of bleeding the blood is not all expelled from the system ; it is the 
blood which gives the reddish colour to the flesh, and why should a little extra 
blood left in the vessels constitute unwholesome meat? So long as the blood 
is pure the blood is the life thereof, and a commodity that is in daily use. 
It was affirmed in court by the veterinary surgeon for the prosecution that 
no correct judgment could be given until the animal had been dead twenty - 
four hours. This seems to me a wild proposition. Rather ought we to be 
able to give a sound opinion immediately after the carcase is hung up and 
the internal organs examined, providing the history of the case has been also 
ascertained. Without this it would be impossible in many cases to give a 
correct opinion whether it had been dead twenty-four hours or not. And 
here I might advance that it would be a wise precaution to give no certificate 
without having first either seen the animal suffer or ascertained reliably its 
previous history; and further, asking your forbearance in going a little wide 
of the declared object of this paper, how necessary it is that we should pre¬ 
pare ourselves, with all the care and support that our profession offers, in 
defending our position and opinion. We have to encounter medical gentle¬ 
men with all their distinguishing titles, and the weight that those titles too 
often impart, when the bearer of them trespasses upon our domains, the 
experiences of all of us will bear witness to this. How many times have 
medical gentlemen come into court, and given evidence on things they clearly 
do not understand touching our pi’ofession, and where, if the least prepara¬ 
tion had been made by members of our profession, the opinion of these 
medical gentlemen would be shown to be fallacious ? There are some things 
in animal pathology that they may be able to speak accurately upon from 
their experience of the human subject; but there are more things in heaven 
and earth than even they dream of in their philosophy. Let us, then, be 
undaunted even though we have to encounter a physician or two. It is aston¬ 
ishing what ignorance prevails amongst them when they get out of their own 
groove, and you would laugh were I to give you the manifestations of this 
that have come to front in my town. I have already trespassed upon your 
time more than I intended, and my object is not to offer you a scientific 
paper, and I should therefore content myself by suggesting a few practical 
hints on the reverse side by shortly enumerating what I think constitutes 
unwholesome meat. It is a prevailing practice here to certify as wholesome 
food animals that have suffered and even died from parturient appoplexy. 
This I consider highly reprehensible, because it is evidently a blood-poisonous 
disease, which is highly contagious in the human subject, and in my humble 
experience in the lower animals also. Again, an animal suffering from 
phthisis in my opinion is unfit for food, for how often have we found fat, 
well fed animals, when killed, positively full of tubercles, and no purer meat 
in appearance came into the market, the adipose tissue as white as snow ? 
