STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 
319 
beef should be of mature age, in good health and well nourished, 
and that the animal should be slaug^htered some little time before 
the beef is used. 
As beef is to be considered as the type of meat food, we will 
here give a chemical analysis of it furnished by Berzelius: 
Water. 77.17 
Muscular tissue. 15.80 
Tendinous tissue. 1.91 
Albumen. 2.20 
Substirices soluble in water. 1.04 
Substances soluble in alcohol. 1.80 
Phosphate of lime. .08 
100.00 
Next to beef as an agreeable and nutritive meat stands mutton. 
So far as its nutritive properties are concerned it would perhaps be 
difficult to say that it is inferior to beef, yet there are few persons 
who can take it for any length of time without acquiring a distaste 
for it, a fact that should teach us that it does not supply that vari¬ 
ety of alimentary matter which we so imperatively demand. 
Pork is most commonly used after it has been preserved by salt¬ 
ing or smoking; but when used fresh, if thoroughly and properly 
cooked, it is a very agreeable and highly nutritious article of food. 
The taste will not tolerate fresh pork as long as it will cured hams, 
bacon, shoulders, etc. It should be borne in mind that pork some¬ 
times contains the trichina spiralis, and when taken into the stom¬ 
ach deficiently cooked, these parasites sometimes find their way 
into the muscles and produce serious disease and sometimes death. 
Pork so infested is said to be measly, and may be detected by its 
general appearance, or by microscopic examination, or by the pe¬ 
culiar crackling noise emitted during the process of roasting or 
broiling. As a matter of precaution, pork should never be used 
until it is very thoroughly cooked. 
The flesh of many non-domesticated animals is, in our climate, 
used as food, as that of the bison, the different varieties of deer, the 
bear, the raccoon, the rabbit and the squirrel. The flesh of these 
animals is, in some instances, highly flavored and nutritious, but 
when constantly used for a time becomes distasteful, and finally, if 
persisted in, absolutely repulsive. In nutritive qualities all are 
much inferior to beef. The same may be said of the flesh of the 
bird family, whether domesticated or wild, as the fowl, turkey. 
