394 
F. 8. BILLINGS. 
With a sharpness for business which could not be excelled by 
the most expert of Yankee tradesmen, he says: “Ye shall not 
eat of any thing that dietli of itself; thou shalt give it unto the 
stranger that is within thy gates that he may eat of it; or thou 
mayest sell it unto an alien, for thou art an holy people unto the 
Lord thy God.”—Deut. xiv, 21. 
Numerous passages which command that all blood must be 
removed from flesh before using it for food, lead one to infer that 
all such articles were to be well cooked before being eaten, and 
that “ under-done” or “ raw-warm” meats were an abomination to 
the Jews, as they should be to all people. 
Plutarch asks, “ Why is it that the priests of Jupiter are 
forbidden to touch raw flesh ?” and answers: “ Raw flesh is no 
more a living creation, but is unfit to eat. Cooking gives it 
another form.” 
As we follow the development of civilization we find more 
and more notice taken of the question in point. It has been 
reserved, however, for our own day to begin active and systematic 
research into these relations, and to make earnest endeavor toward 
the discovery of their causes, the means and ways by which the 
latter gain access to the human organism, and to seek out conform¬ 
able means of preventing the same. 
We are living in the day which marks the birth of systematic 
attempts at the development of preventive medicine. The old 
saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” is 
beginning to be practically appreciated by the best minds in the 
medical profession, and the people as well, and specialists are 
doing their utmost to forward its universal acceptation. 
Not only is human life endangered by the consumption of the 
products from previously diseased animals, or from the consump¬ 
tion of improperly cured or cooked flesh, but quite a number of 
animal diseases are capable, by intentional or other means of trans¬ 
mission, of infecting the human organism. 
Professor Virchow has said that man is much more suscepti¬ 
ble to infection from contagious or infectious diseases of animals 
than animals are to infection from similar diseases peculiar to 
man. 
