406 
WM. H. GRIBBLE. 
consumptive patient ? This is exactly what is done by the 
veterinarian at all times ; he studies the relation of animal dis¬ 
eases to the public health. 
These facts of themselves should be sufficient to grant veter¬ 
inarians equal recognition with physicians on boards of health 
so that both could work in harmony, could work together for 
the lessenino" of the human death rate. 
o 
We believe that there is an immense traffic in diseased meat 
(dead and alive), for in nearly every city or town there is to be 
found butchers well versed in every known method of conceal¬ 
ing diseased meat and selling it as sound, and who are willing, 
yea, anxious, to buy such carcasses and animals as would not be 
financially prudent for them to have their patrons see, especially 
previous to slaughter. 
The risk is taken in consideration of the greater profits and 
is of course to be found far more frequently in onr towns and 
smaller cities, where no attempt is made at inspection, and 
where private slaughter houses are used and pigs kept at these 
houses to remove the offal. A diseased animal may be butchered 
at night or in the privacy of the slaughter house, the diseased 
portions being destroyed. Then who is wise enough or unwise 
enough to tell the story ? 
That such things are done in all parts of the State we have 
no doubt, for the city in which we live, a city of seven thousand 
inhabitants, contains no worse citizens than other cities, and 
we personally know of such things being done there and done 
purposely. 
We were called to see a cow (thin in flesh ; had calved two 
weeks previous) which had fallen in the road, rupturing a 
blood vessel of the brain. Treatment was of no avail. Some 
time the next day, the cow lying flat on her side, but not quite 
dead, a butcher of our city came along and purchased her for 
$1. He carefully bled the animal, loaded her into his wagon 
and took her to the slaughter house, to be fed (he said) to the 
pigs, but a careful examination of that pig pen failed to show 
any of the bones, so we suppose the pigs ate them, too. More- 
