6 
EDITORIAL. 
I 
commanding the army, had been that large consignments of 
contracted fresh beef and canned roast beef had been rendered 
unwholesome by chemical preservatives or from use of diseased 
meat, and that much of the prevailing sickness of soldiers in the 
southern camps and particularly in Cuba and Porto Rico, was 
its direct result. 
Although we believe that the War Department has had the 
best intentions and has earnestly striven to secure and furnish 
the best available meat to the troops, the evidence so far elicited 
goes far toward showing that the Subsistence Department has 
been acting without the guidance of expert counsel which alone 
could furnish that scientific knowledge and practical judgment 
of the quality and wholesomeness of meat which is so essential 
for providing an army in the field. This fact becomes particu¬ 
larly plain when we read the testimony given by army surgeons, 
who seem to be regarded by the War Department as experts in this 
branch of veterinary science. . The famous phrase u embalmed 
beef,” credited to Dr. Daly, a volunteer surgeon, proves in itself 
that these doctors are more familiar with the undertakers’ es¬ 
tablishments than with the slaughter-house and canning-estab¬ 
lishments. The testimony of other surgeons, too, moves within 
vague generalities ; they describe the meat as u chemically pre¬ 
pared, as decomposed, as fermented and containing ptomaines,” 
while one sergeant signified it as unfit for dogs. But no scien¬ 
tific proof of these assertions has been brought forward by bac¬ 
teriological or chemical examination executed on the spot. 
However, there seems to be no doubt that the refrigerated beef 
was at times spoiled by climatic influences, and that the canned 
roast beef was an unpalatable and innutritious meat diet. In 
this connection we recall the report of a German veterinary 
journal of a year or two ago, that a Board of Subsistence offi¬ 
cials and army veterinarians had refused this canned roast beef 
as an army diet, while they accepted the canned corned beef and 
smoked beef. The latter, nutritious and spicy, would have been 
an ideal meat diet for a semi-tropical climate. 
It is to be deplored that the Bureau of Animal Industry has 
