Philadelphia’s meat insi’ECTION. 
71 4 
inspections of meats for foreign and inter-State commerce. He 
referred to tlie dangers arising from the distribution of diseased 
foods, meat, especially, and expressed strongly his approval of 
the steps of the association. 
Dr. Hnidekoper said that it was a question which should be 
taken up at ouce and followed up with untiring zeal, as it is 
one of the greatest interest to the community—interest far 
greater than tlie community itself can realize. 
Dr. Benjamin Lee spoke of trichinosis, the parasitic worm 
which infects ])ork when it is raised under unhealthy conditions, 
and, of the ease with which it is propagated in the human or¬ 
ganism. He described the way the disease is acquired, by eat¬ 
ing pork not sufficiently cooked and which was infected. 
Dr. Clement, of Baltimore, spoke briefly on the conditions 
existing in that city, and which he said are not what they should 
be by any means. He deplored the absence of precaution in the 
matter, for he said that he found one and forty-seventh one-hun¬ 
dredth per cent, of the cattle handled by stock dealers and drov¬ 
ers to be infected with tuberculosis. 
Dr. Gill spoke of the methods in New York City, where there 
are four meat inspectors and two fish inspectors, who found that 
1,500,000 pounds of diseased meat and fish are annually shipped 
into that city. Ideal inspection does not exist, he said, and the 
only way to possibly cope with the matter is to have first a 
proper and efficient corps of scientists, a laboratory for them to 
work in, sufficient outside inspectors to do the field work, and, 
most important of all, the absolute exclusion of politics from 
the work. 
Dr. George Strawbridge dealt with tuberculous cattle and 
the manner of the spread of that dire disease by meat and milk. 
The remedy, he suggested, was that suggested by all others, the 
centralization of the slaughter houses into one great abattoir, 
where the inspection could be thorough and easy. 
Dr. Leonard Pearson described the methods of Berlin, Paris 
and other Phiropean cities where this plan is carried out, and 
where it is absolutely impossible for diseased meat to reach the 
dealer or the consumer. He gave a picture of the methods 
here, of the slaughter of the beasts and the subsequent dragging 
of the meat through dirty, dusty, germ-infected streets. That, 
he said, was enougli in itself to make people pray for the early 
arrival of the centralized abattoir and the infliction of a penalty 
for the exposure for sale of meat that does not bear the hall¬ 
mark of the inspector and the tag of the inspectress. 
