46 BULLETIN OF THE BUSSEY INSTITUTION. 
In the slaughtering of calves, it is not a common practice with us, 
as it is in France and other countries, to render them insensible before 
bleeding, for fear that the brain may be made less inviting as an arti- 
cle of food by being torn and stained with blood. By using a broad 
_ mallet this may be, in a great measure, avoided, and even if these re- 
sults do follow, they do not in reality alter the quality of the brain 
for edible purposes. Objections to the humane destruction of an 
animal on such grounds are as unreasonable as those which are made 
to juicy and wholesome red veal by people who prefer that which has 
been rendered white, dry, and innutritious by repeated bleedings, 
which have reduced the calf, before death, to a lingering condition 
of faintness and debility. 
The calf should be first stunned by a blow upon the head by a broad 
mallet or hammer aimed at a spot relatively the same as in the full- 
grown animal. This is to be followed by immediate bleeding, prac- 
tised by severing the throat at a point corresponding to the upper por- 
tion of the windpipe, using a sharp knife and doing the work thoroughly 
and at once, so as to open all the arteries and veins of the neck. 
Sheep and lambs should be rendered insensible by a blow upon the 
head, to be followed subsequently by severing the throat, as just ad- 
vised in the case of calves, or by plunging a sharp-pointed knife 
through the blood-vessels at either side of the neck between the 
bones and the windpipe. 
The place to be selected for a blow is the centre of a line drawn 
across the head about two inches above the eyes, the brain in the 
sheep occupying a situation posterior to what at first sight would 
appear to be the natural one. | 
There is an idea prevalent among farmers, and even among many 
of those who practise the slaughtering of swine as an avocation, that, 
if these animals are first rendered insensible by blows upon the head, 
it is impossible to empty the blood-vessels. ; 
There is no foundation, however, for any such opinion. Any obsta- 
cles to bleeding are due, not to material differences in the anatomi- 
cal arrangement of the blood-vessels, but solely to the difficulties 
attending the cutting through of the great mass of fat and flesh which 
characterizes the necks of swine in order to’reach these vessels. 
