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16 
F. S. BILLINGS. 
your inquiry, “If swine at the large Chicago packing-houses are 
fed upon the intestines and other offal of those previously slaugh¬ 
tered, in a cooked or uncooked condition ? ” 
No hogs are fed within many miles of the stock yards, except 
an occasional one, kept by an Irish or German woman, and fed 
from her kitchen. No part of the offal of the slaughter-houses 
is used for feeding animals of any description. Every packing- 
concern lias an apparatus for this purpose. There are extensive 
rendering establishments that take and dispose of every dead 
animal. The gates are guarded so that none can be taken off to 
any other place. The product of these establishments is prepared 
chiefly for axle and soap grease; the bones and hair go to the fer¬ 
tilizers. It would be impossible to use any of this matter for 
food to hogs, as the odor stays with it too closely to allow any one 
to be deceived by it. There is one separate department where 
the large alimentary gut is prepared for the use of Bologna sau¬ 
sage makers. There are three or four establishments that take 
blood and prepare it for fertilizers and sugar refiners. The hair 
from the packing-concerns is contracted for by regular dealers, 
who take it to the prairie, where it is spread out, washed by the 
rain, and dried by the sun ; then packed and sold to brush, mat¬ 
tress and other manufacturers. The same with the hoofs and 
horns. Everything is utilized, and nothing wasted. 
Yours truly, 
N. H. Paaren, M. I)., Y. S. 
Bollinger’s remarks continue as follows: “if w T e assume that 
one in one thousand swine is infected with trichinae, and from the 
refuse of the same two more become infected, the following geo¬ 
metric progression may take place: the first year one swine in¬ 
fected, the second, two, the third, four , the fourth, eight, and so 
on, until, in the course of fifteen years, we have 16,384 swine in 
fected from a single nucleus of infection.” 
It is therefore right to warn the people against the consumption 
of American pork, and the microscopic examination of the same 
must in no case be neglected, as in the American slaughter-houses 
the breeding of trichinae seems to be so regularly and thoroughly 
carried out, that no organized attempt could be hoped to equal it.” 
To be continued. 
