_PREPARATION AND CARE OF MILK AND MEAT_
Milk has long been considered to be one of the most important human
foods, particularly for the young, combining within itself all the
essential elements necessary for the production of cell tissue and for
animal vitality. In composition, it is about 87 per cent water, the
remaining 13 per cent being divided between fat, casein, and sugar in
equal parts, with a small addition of salt.
As is well known, milk is the sole food upon which it is possible to
sustain life for long periods, and while this applies directly to
infants, it is by no means confined to them. Many examples can be given
of men and women of mature life who, either on account of some digestive
disorder or some mental bias, have confined themselves absolutely to a
diet of about two quarts of milk a day and have lived thereon for months
and years without suffering from lack of nutrition.
In recent years, due to the advocacy of the eminent scientist,
Metchnikoff, who asserts that researches in the Pasteur Institute have
shown that certain diseases of advanced age are due to auto-intoxication
from the larger intestine and that the consumption of fermented milk
acts as an antiseptic, neutralizing this bacterial intoxication, the
consumption of fermented milk, or buttermilk, or koumiss, has very
largely increased. It is, in fact, rather remarkable to find that in
large cities, business men whose digestions have been ruined are
devoting themselves to unlimited quantities of buttermilk in the hope
that their former excesses and absurdities in the way of food may be
counteracted and health restored.
Between these two extremes--the use of milk for the very young and for
the aged and infirm--milk plays an important part as food. The
consumption of milk in New York State, according to statistics, amounts
to about a pint a day for each person for that part of the country. As
an article of food, milk has the advantage already referred to, namely,
that besides its nutritive power it has a curative effect greatly
augmented by fermentation, the modification so vigorously advocated by
Metchnikoff. Another advantage which milk possesses as an article of
food is that, by sterilization and storage in closed vessels, it may be
kept for days and even months in good condition. At the time of the
Paris Exposition, milk was sent from America and exhibited alongside of
French milk with no preservatives except heat used for removing the
bacteria in the milk and then cold storage for keeping others out, and
two weeks after the original bottling the milk was in good condition. To
meet the need of ailing babies, advantage was taken of this valuable
property of milk, by which it could be shipped from dairies near New
York to the Isthmus of Panama, and used continually with good results
although more than a week old.
_Bacteria in milk._
The great disadvantage which milk sustains as an article of food is that
the same composition that makes it so useful as a diet for man, also
renders it a most admirable culture medium for the rapid development of
all kinds of bacteria. Some of these bacteria are, without doubt, benign
in their effect upon man; as, for example, the particular species used
to produce koumiss and other varieties of fermented milk now recommended
by physicians. But there are many other kinds of bacteria that find life
in milk congenial, whose effect upon the human system is not salutary,
and, if milk infected with those varieties is used for feeding infants,
the result is quite likely to be a disturbance of their digestive
system, producing diarrhea and cholera infantum and possibly death.
It was at one time common to add to milk certain antiseptics for the
purpose of preventing the growth of bacteria, and, except that the
preservatives acted quite as injuriously upon man as upon the bacteria,
the results, so far as merely keeping the milk went, were all that could
be desired. The chemicals added were borax, boracic acid, salicilic
acid, sodium carbonate, and other similar disinfectants. Gradually,
however, it has come to be known that, inasmuch as the milk when first
drawn from the cow's udder is sterile, that is, contains no bacteria,
and since it is quite possible to prevent the introduction of bacteria
into milk during the processes of milking, straining, and bottling,
there is no need of the addition of preservatives, provided particular
care is exercised in handling the milk.
_Effects of bacteria._
Since this care involves the expenditure of both additional time and
money, questions at once arise whether such expenditure is necessary,
whether the introduction of a few bacteria into the milk is
objectionable, and what the results are upon the persons drinking milk
containing bacteria. For our present purpose, the kinds of bacteria
which find their way into milk may be divided into two classes, namely,
those that are normally in milk and which tend to produce souring, and
those which accidentally enter and are able to produce disease in
persons drinking the milk. The first kind probably enter the milk from
the air or from the surface of the milk-pail, and in the milk increase
in numbers very rapidly and have the same effect in the milk and on
persons drinking the milk as any large amount of organic matter.
The second kind of bacteria are known as pathogenic; that is, are the
direct cause of disease when taken into the human system. Under ordinary
circumstances, this latter class will not be found in milk, since these
kinds of bacteria must come from some infected person, and if no such
person is in contact with the milk at any stage, then it is impossible
for the milk to become so polluted. However, those interested in
preventing the spread of disease through polluted milk argue that if the
conditions in a stable and dairy are so unclean that large numbers of
the normal milk bacteria can enter the milk and increase in numbers
there, then conditions would be favorable for the introduction of
pathogenic bacteria whenever the milker or bottle-washer or the strainer
or any of the helpers became sick.
To show the difference in the effect of a clean stable and dairy as
compared with an ordinary one, it is only necessary to say that in
investigating the quality of the milk supply of a certain city
recently, the writer found one stable where the milk analyses showed
from half a million to a million bacteria per c.c.,[2]--that is, per
half-teaspoonful,--and this was occurring in the dairy regularly from
month to month as the analyses were made. Another stable in the same
city showed just as regularly a bacterial count in the milk of from 1000
to 5000 per c.c., the difference being due solely to the way in which
the stables and dairies were kept,--in the one case with no regard to
cleanliness and in the other with the very best attention paid thereto.
Certainly, if dirt is so much in evidence that a million bacteria can
enter the milk in every c.c., no particular pains can be taken in such a
stable to keep out disease germs; while in the clean stable, where so
few germs enter, disease germs could hardly find any opportunity for
lodgment.
[Footnote 2: c.c. = cubic centimeter, or centister. A centimeter is
about 2/5 of an inch (.3937). 1 cubic inch is about 16-1/2 c.c.]
The following example may be given to indicate the effect of impure milk
upon a community. The vital statistics of the city of Rochester,
including the deaths of children under five years, show that from 1889
to 1896, during the summer, infants died at the rate of 109 per 100,000
population. The health officer of the city undertook to improve the
quality of the milk, and from 1896 to 1905, statistics show that the
number of children dying, under five years, was only at the rate of 54
per 100,000,--a manifest saving due, without doubt, to the improvement
in the quality of the milk. By repeated examinations of the dairies, by
rigid enforcement of certain rules governing the distribution of milk,
and by detailed lessons to mothers in the tenement-house districts on
the care of milk, the quality of the milk was so improved as to make the
reduction in the death-rate already pointed out.
The Honorable Nathan Strauss, of New York City, has taken up the same
idea, and, by supplying the poor with milk properly heated so as to
destroy the bacteria which may have been introduced by careless
handling, has also saved hundreds of thousands of children from
premature death.
_Diseases caused by milk._
Many infectious diseases are propagated by milk, not only among
children, whose chief food is found in this supply, but also among those
of more mature age who, though drinking only a small quantity, are
apparently more easily affected. Four diseases are particularly to be
noted in connection with the consumption of milk, namely, typhoid fever,
scarlet fever, diphtheria, and tuberculosis.
_Typhoid fever from milk._
One of the most striking illustrations of the spread of typhoid fever
through milk occurred this last year in the city of Ithaca, New York.
The city proper lies in a valley between two hills, the milkmen having
their farms on both sides of the valley to the east and west, on the
hill slopes. One milkman on the west, with a large route, delivered his
own milk only in part and bought an additional supply from a farmer on
the east. In the family of the latter occurred a case of typhoid fever
in September, pronounced by the local physician to be sunstroke, but
evidently typhoid fever, since other cases of secondary infection
developed in the same family and were then pronounced typhoid. The milk
from this east-side farm was taken down the hillside and turned over to
the west-side farmer, who distributed his own milk in his trip from his
farm across the valley, his route being so timed as to allow him thus to
dispose of all his own milk. Having then loaded up with the east-side
supply, he started back across the valley, distributing the milk which
was evidently polluted, since on his return route house after house
developed typhoid fever, with no cases on the first part of the route
and with no other cases in town except those on this milk route.
Forty-four cases developed in all, with two deaths.
The Reports of the Massachusetts State Board of Health give a number of
cases of the same sort, all showing that milk is easily infected by
persons suffering from even mild attacks of typhoid fever, attacks so
slight as perhaps not to be recognized or to be worth submitting to a
physician, but which are responsible for bacteria passing from the hands
or mouth to a can cover or ladle, and so to the milk.
_Diphtheria._
Diphtheria seems to be well established as a disease transmissible by
milk, although its occurrence is not so frequent as that of typhoid
fever. Not long since, the writer was much interested in an epidemic of
this sort described by a physician who was convinced that the bacteria
responsible for the mild form of the disease occurred largely in the
nose and throat passages. He noted that as the result of these growths a
constant exudation from both passages was present, and that a man with
this disease, working over the milk, might easily allow the milk to be
polluted by this exudate dropping from his nose.
The result was a general distribution of a mild form of diphtheria among
those using the milk.
_Scarlet fever._
Many examples have also been given of the distribution of scarlet fever
through the agency of milk, the specific contagion probably being
discharged by the patient from his nostrils, mouth, or from the dry
particles of skin so characteristic of this disease. Unfortunately, mild
cases of scarlatina are very apt to occur, so mild that a physician is
not called in, and the only positive proof of the disease consists in
the subsequent "peeling," although the nasal passages may have been
alive with germs.
_Tuberculosis._
So far as tuberculosis is concerned, nothing seems to be definitely
proved. There is little fear of milk becoming infected from tuberculous
patients or of the disease being transmitted through milk from one
person to another, as with the three other diseases mentioned. The
possibility of infection here lies in the fact that a cow, like man, is
susceptible to tuberculosis as a disease, and undergoes the same course
of prolonged suffering and death. The interesting question is whether
the disease may be transmitted from a cow to a man through the cow's
milk. With all the refinements suggested by science as to the virulence
of the disease thus transmitted, with a study of the comparative
symptoms of the two diseases, of the progress of the disease in the cow
when the germs are found in the milk, and of the possibility of
eliminating these germs by heating or otherwise, the danger from
diseased cows is still unsettled.
So far as present knowledge goes, it is probably conservative to say
that although tests made on cows by inoculation with tuberculin show
that a large proportion of the animals in the various dairy herds are
more or less affected by tuberculosis, yet only a small proportion of
the milk from such cows shows the presence of the tuberculosis bacillus.
So far as statistics can be given on this subject, it seems probable
that not more than ten per cent of the cows reacting under the
tuberculin test would show tubercular bacilli in the milk, or would
develop tubercular reactions if the milk were used in inoculations. The
reason for this is probably that the tubercular growth in the cow does
not naturally attack the milk glands until the disease is well advanced,
and when the general appearance of the cow indicates severe illness, so
that any careful milkman would not use the particular milk, even if the
milk flow did not cease. It is not reasonable to assume that all milk
from tubercular cows is itself infected, nor yet that all children
drinking milk so infected will contract the disease. But the mere
possibility of demonstrating that a small percentage of tubercular cows
will cause human tuberculosis is sufficient to justify all possible
precautions against tubercular animals and against the distribution of
tubercular milk. In this connection it is worth while noting that the
cows most affected by tuberculosis are those confined in small crowded
stables, with no fresh air, with no exercise, and with insufficient or
improper food. Unfortunately it is not possible to trace the connection
between the particular animal responsible for the disease in a human
being, since the period required for the development of the disease is
so great that the possible time of onset is forgotten and the cause of
the disease entirely out of mind.
It can only be said, therefore, that laboratory experiments have
demonstrated the presence of the tuberculosis bacillus in milk from
tubercular cows, and that this bacillus is known to produce tubercular
lesions in man. It is wise, therefore, to eliminate the milk of
tubercular cows if healthy milk is to be provided.
_Methods of obtaining clean milk._
Aside from the infection of milk by specific disease-producing bacteria,
the milkman of to-day must be very careful to avoid a milk which shall
contain large numbers of bacteria of any type which, while not producing
any specific disease, nevertheless causes changes in the chemical
composition of the milk, which make it at the same time unfit as an
article of food for individuals and shows the possibility of other kinds
of infection.
There are two axioms to be followed if good clean milk is to be
produced, and those are that the milking and straining shall be done in
clean stables, from clean cows, by clean persons; and the other that the
milk shall be cooled to a temperature of fifty degrees or less as soon
as received from the cow. Neither of these requirements is difficult to
attain, but they constitute the sole reason why some milk contains a
million or more bacteria and other milk less than a thousand; and it is
quite possible by enforcing these two requirements to change the number
of bacteria in milk from the large figure to the small one.
Probably it is in the stable where the cows are milked that the most
important factor in producing large numbers of bacteria is to be found.
Not long ago the writer saw a number of stables, the ceilings of which
were poles on which the winter supply of hay was stored and the
atmosphere was noticeably dust-laden. A good milk could not be
furnished from such a stable, and therefore it may be set down as the
first requirement that the ceiling of the stable should be entirely
dust-tight. Some of the best stables in the country for this reason have
no loft of any sort above the cattle, but if the ceiling is tight,--that
is, made with tongue-and-groove boards and then painted,--there can be
no objection to the storage of hay in the loft. Hay should not be taken
from the loft or fed to the cows just before milking, because the very
moving of a forkful of hay through the air of the stable stirs up so
large a number of bacteria in the air that quantities of them will later
fall into the milk-pail.
_Light and air_ in a stable are both important, not so much for the
quality of the milk as for the health of the cows that furnish the milk.
Ventilation and sunlight are both excellent antiseptics. The ordinary
rule for the amount of window area per cow as given by the United States
Department of Agriculture is four square feet of window surface. But it
is not easy to definitely state any fixed amount of window area, since
the value of the window is in its disinfecting power on the bacterial
life of the stable, and this is greater or less as the windows receive
the direct sunlight or are hidden under eaves where no sunlight reaches
them.
The next factor in the production of good milk is the condition of the
_walls of the stable_. Like the ceiling, they should be absolutely free
from dust, and should be smooth, so that they may be brushed or even
washed clean. For this reason, walls with ledges are objectionable, and
all horizontal surfaces in a stable are undesirable. Tongue-and-groove
sheeting should never be laid horizontally, but rather vertically, and a
smooth brick or concrete wall is better than wood in any case. The same
care must be taken to have the floor clean and dry. A floor of saturated
wood, containing millions of bacteria which are stirred up by the milker
moving around, causes many of those millions to be deposited in the
milk-pail. A concrete floor for the stalls and drains is the ideal
construction, and both should be thoroughly cleaned morning and night,
so that no dried refuse may remain as the living place for bacteria. Nor
should the manure thrown from the stalls be left in the vicinity of the
barn, but carried away at least 200 feet, in order that the barnyard may
be kept dry and clean, that no smell from the manure may reach the milk,
and that the flies which come from manure piles may be kept at least
that distance from the cows.
The next factor in the production of clean milk is the _condition of the
cow herself_, not in the matter of her actual health, but in the matter
of the cleanliness of her skin at the time the milking is done. If the
udder and sides of the cow have been coated with manure, it is certain
that more or less will fall into the milk-pail at the time of milking,
and the "cowy taste" of the milk is easily accounted for in this way. In
a modern stable, the milkman is careful to clean the cow ten or fifteen
minutes before the milking is done by sponging or washing her belly,
sides, and udder with a damp cloth or with a cloth moistened with a
disinfecting solution. In one set of experiments, for instance, 20,000
bacteria per c.c. were found in the milk when the cow was rubbed off
before the milking and 170,000 when the preliminary cleaning was
omitted. In another case, milk from four dirty cows gave an average of
90,000 bacteria, while other cows of the same herd, milked by the same
man, but carefully cleaned before milking, gave only 2000 per c.c. The
care involved brings its own reward, and it is in most cases a lack of
knowledge or an indifference to results which causes the malign effects
above noted.
Only a few weeks ago, the writer watched the hired man start the milking
and was disgusted to see the old-fashioned practice followed of
squeezing a little milk onto the man's filthy hands and then the handful
of milk rubbed around on the cow's teats to drip filthy and
bacteria-laden into the milk-pail along with the milk itself.
One other factor is involved which, while scoffed at by some of the
old-time farmers, has nevertheless proved its value, and that is the use
of the _narrow-topped milk-pail_. It is startling when tested by
bacterial growths under the two conditions to see how many more bacteria
will be found in the wide open pail than in the narrow-topped one, and
while, of course, some milkers may not be able to use a pail the top of
which is only six inches in diameter, it is quite worth while for
milkers who do not know how to use a narrow-topped pail to learn.
The size of the opening is not the whole consideration in the matter of
the milk-pail. The way it is washed is even more important. If it is
merely rinsed out in cold water and then washed in warm water, it is far
from clean, and milk poured into such a pail and then poured out will by
that process have gathered to itself thousands of bacteria. For example,
some experiments have shown that milk in well-washed pails had, on the
average, 28,600 bacteria per c.c., while that collected in pails of the
same sort under identical conditions, except that the pails had been
steamed, contained only 1300 bacteria per c.c.
Perhaps the most important factor in the care of these utensils is the
necessity of killing the bacteria left in them by the milk itself.
Ordinary washing will not do this. Either the washing must be done with
some sterilizing agent, like strong salsoda, which must then, of course,
be thoroughly rinsed out, or else the inside of the pail must be filled
with absolutely boiling water or with steam. The advantage of the latter
is that no contamination is possible by the water itself, whereas in
washing out the disinfectant the water, unless pure, contaminates the
surface again. To show the effects of clean pails, an experiment was
made in which milk was drawn from a cow and found to have 6000 bacteria
per c.c. It was then poured rapidly from one to another of six other
apparently clean pails. At the end of the sixth pouring, the milk was
found to be so changed that the number of bacteria had increased to
98,000 per c.c.
The strainer for a milk-pail is preferably made of cheesecloth, since
this can always be easily boiled between milkings, and so sterilized. A
wire strainer through which the milk has to pass, and where the milk is
often stirred by the finger of the milker to make it pass through more
rapidly, is in no sense as satisfactory as cheesecloth.
The straining should be performed as soon as each pail is filled with
milk, and pails of milk should never be allowed to stand around in the
barn back of the cows, but rather should be taken at once to the
milk-room, where it can be strained before any further contamination
takes place.
Then the milk should be cooled, and this, to be effective, must be done
in such a way that the temperature of the milk shall at once fall to
fifty degrees or less. It is well known that a forty-quart can of milk
lowered into spring water cools slowly on the outside, but that hours
will pass before the inside of the can has its temperature lowered
appreciably. Meanwhile, bacterial growth has started, and that milk can
never be as good as when cooled quickly throughout. Special apparatus is
made in which the milk is spread out in very thin sheets over a surface
cooled by ice or cold water to a low temperature. In this way all the
milk is at once lowered in temperature and may then be kept in spring
water until time for shipment. Many examples can be given of the value
of this kind of cooling. A few years ago, the Cornell University
Agricultural Experiment Station determined that a certain milk when
fresh contained, about 4000 bacteria per c.c., and fifteen hours later
at room temperature had 270,000, and twenty-seven hours later had soured
with an innumerable number of bacteria. Another part of the same milk,
however, kept at fifty degrees Fahrenheit, showed absolutely no increase
in bacteria for twenty-seven hours, and was still sweet with only 12,000
bacteria at the end of three days.
_City milk._
The value of pure milk is not a matter of individual opinion on the part
of the farmer, but it is a vital point with thousands and millions who
are dependent upon the farmer for this life-giving food. Unfortunately,
to-day the relation between the consumer and the milkman is so remote
that it is almost lost sight of, and in place of the personal
relationship which formerly existed, which made the milkman proud of
his milk and the consumer proud of her milkman, there is to-day an
absolute disregard of the interests of the other side in almost all
cases. Even in the smaller cities, consolidated milk companies are being
established by which the former independent milkmen are bringing milk to
the central station in large cans, where it is dumped into vats along
with the milk from a dozen other milkmen. Some may be good and some bad,
but what is the use, each one says, of my taking particular pains when
my neighbor produces milk of such poor quality? The result is that it is
all far from good and likely to deteriorate rather than to improve. To
be sure, at the central station it is bottled and distributed to the
consumer in apparently clean glass jars, but this is not the same
cleanliness that one gets when the bottling is done five minutes after
the milk comes from the cow.
When the milk supplied to the larger cities is furnished as in New York,
the impossibility of controlling the quality of the supply becomes
apparent. The farmer brings to the shipping station his two or three
large cans of milk, representing the night's and morning's milkings.
These are loaded on a train along with hundreds of others, a few chunks
of ice are thrown on top, and the train is started for New York, from
points as far as two hundred and fifty miles away, reaching the city in
the early evening. There it is received and hauled to milk stations,
where it is distributed in different-sized cans and bottles, and the
next morning, thirty-six hours old, distributed to the babies of the
city as fresh milk. Thanks to the energetic inspection practiced by the
officers of the Department of Health of New York City, who have emptied
hundreds of quarts of milk into the city gutters merely because the
temperature of the milk was higher than that prescribed, the quality of
the milk is not so bad as it might be. In fact, the writer has bought
apparently good milk on Long Island, shipped down from New York City,
because the local supply was deficient in quantity and inferior in
quality, although the latter would naturally be supposed to be fresh and
the other was certainly forty-eight hours old on its receipt.
Cleanliness and care are the two watchwords for good milk, and both
practices ought to be observed faithfully by the milk producer, whether
he has in mind the health of his own family or the health of the
dwellers in the city hundreds of miles away.
_Dangers of diseased meat._
Next to milk, the product of the farm which has most to do with the
health of those to whom farm products are sent is the meat which comes
from the cows, sheep, and pigs, and makes a large part of the farmer's
produce. To be sure, the amount of meat thus sent to market from the
farm is by no means as great as in former years, since even the smallest
village to-day has representatives of Swift and Co., Schwartzman and
Sulzenberger, Jacob Dold, and others of the great western packing
houses. There is still, however, a great deal of local butchering, and
it is important that the farmer himself should know the characteristics
of meat and should be so impressed with the dangers of diseased meat
that the temptation to unload a bad carcass on the unsuspecting public
may be overcome. There is nothing more certain in sanitary science than
that the application of heat destroys animal parasites and
micro-organisms, so that, except for diminishing the nutritive value,
there is comparatively little real danger in eating diseased meat when
cooked, and the fearful ravages of bad ham have been largely due to
occasions where the ham has been eaten raw or semi-raw.
There are two points to be noted in an animal about to be killed,
namely, whether the animal is healthy, that is, free from disease,--and
whether it is in proper condition, neither too young nor too old, is
well-grown and well-nourished. Among the diseases to which animals are
subject, some are objectionable because of the possibility of the direct
transmission of their disease to those eating the flesh, while others
are objectionable because the flesh is spoiled and so causes irritation
in the stomach and intestines of those eating it. Among the former
diseases may be mentioned trichinosis, tuberculosis, and measles of
pigs. In the latter category are animals suffering from such diseases as
epidemic pneumonia, foot-and-mouth disease, Texas fever, anthrax, hog
cholera, and others in which a general toxic condition of the animal's
system results from the disease. Toxins are thus formed in the body
which may pass to the human being eating the flesh, and in this way
poisons called ptomaines are produced, resulting in so-called toxic
poisoning. It is not the function of this book to describe the symptoms
peculiar to each of these diseases, and it is here sufficient to say
that the flesh of no animal apparently suffering from any disease should
be used for food.
The unhealthy animal can usually be recognized by a casual examination,
without undertaking to define the specific disease from which the animal
is suffering, characterized by such an examination. When sick,
according to Parkes, the coat of the animal is rough or standing, the
nostrils are dry or covered with foam, the eyes are heavy, the tongue
protrudes, the respiration is difficult, the movements are slow and
uncertain, and the various organs of the body perform their functions
abnormally. On the other hand, the healthy animal moves freely, has a
bright eye and moist nostril and a clear skin, the respiration is not
hurried and the breath has no unpleasant odor, the circulation is
tranquil, and the appetite good, thirst not excessive, and, if ruminant,
when in repose, chews the cud.
There is, however, one exception to this general rule, and that is in
the case of tuberculosis, since the most scientific observations have
failed to trace any connection between the inception of tuberculosis in
man and the eating of meat from tuberculous animals, or to show any evil
effects to man from eating the flesh of cows affected in the first
stages of tuberculosis. The regulations of the United States Department
of Agriculture on this point are as follows:----
"All carcasses affected with tuberculosis and showing emaciation shall
be condemned. All other carcasses affected with tuberculosis shall be
condemned, except those in which the lesions are slight, calcified, or
encapsulated, and are confined to certain tissues ... and excepting also
those which may ... be rendered into lard or tallow."
The regulations referred to say in substance that when the lesions occur
in a single part of the body, as in the neck, liver, lungs, or in
certain specified combinations, the meat may be used; but that where the
lesions affect more than one or two parts of the body, the carcass must
be rendered at a temperature of not less than 220 degrees Fahrenheit
for four hours into lard or tallow.
This really means that an animal only slightly affected with
tuberculosis, where the lesions are slight and are confined to the
tissues of certain organs only, may be used for food. This has been
decided only after very careful reading of all known facts, and is
particularly important in view of the opposition to the use of milk of
tuberculous cows. The tuberculin test, on which depends the
determination of tuberculosis in cows, is so delicate that a very slight
lesion is sufficient to cause a reaction. The lesions are so slight as
in many cases to be entirely overlooked by the ordinary butcher. The
United States regulations allow such a carcass to be butchered and used
for food after the cow has been condemned by the tuberculin test as a
milk-producing animal. This does not mean, of course, that those parts
of the body affected by the tuberculosis lesions shall be used, but,
since these lesions are usually segregated, they can readily be cut out
without reference to the rest of the body.
The other point to be noted in selecting or rejecting animals for
slaughter is their general condition. This means that they should be of
the proper weight,--that is, not emaciated, but with a proper amount of
fat,--that the flesh should be firm and elastic and the skin supple. Nor
should they be either too young or too old. A prominent example of the
first error is in the sale of calves under three weeks old, known as
"bob-veal," and while some sanitarians will not object to eating calves
under three weeks old, the consensus of opinion is that to be fit for
food a calf should be at least that age. Fortunately, it is for the
interest of the butcher to hold the calf until it has arrived at a
certain weight, and the stringent laws of most states prohibiting the
sale of bob-veal make it dangerous and expensive for the farmer to
slaughter young calves unless they are of the right age.
The most common example of the direct transmission of disease from
animals to men is through the development of the parasite in a pig,
known as "trichinosis." This disease is due to a minute worm scarcely
visible to the naked eye which lives in the muscles of men, dogs, swine,
and other animals, and also under other conditions in their intestines.
Millions of the young trichinae may live in the flesh of a pig without
producing any particular difference in the appearance of the flesh.
After four or five weeks, they become incased in small white spherical
capsules which later, after a year or so, become entirely calcified. In
this form they live for years in the flesh of the pig and do no harm in
that condition. If, however, this flesh be eaten by man without being
cooked so thoroughly as to destroy the little worm (about one
twenty-fifth of an inch long) which has been living in these capsules,
then they become distributed around the stomach of the person eating
that flesh, enter the intestines, and attach themselves to the membranes
there. They grow very rapidly, and broods of from 500 to 1000 young
worms are produced from each one of the entering worms, and, since there
may be a quarter of a million or more in an ounce of pork, it is not
surprising that the total number deposited in the intestines from a
single meal of raw pork is enough to produce great distress,
characterized by vomiting and diarrhea. Fortunately, the disease is not
necessarily serious, since after the development of the young worms (and
it is at this period when the suffering of the human patient is at its
height), the worms begin to form capsules again, as in the pig, and when
inclosed, are again inocuous. Professor Sedgwick says that persons in
robust health may be able to survive the attack of half a million or
more of these flesh worms and recover, but there is a limit to human
endurance, and the numbers often contained in the muscles of man from
this source are almost incredible. In some severe cases, the numbers
contained in human bodies have been estimated by reliable authorities to
be as high as forty to sixty millions. Not long ago, the writer was
impressed with the severity of this disease by having brought to his
attention an epidemic in a herd of swine caused, presumably, by feeding
waste which contained rinds of Western pork, infected with trichinae and
many examples may be found of regular epidemics caused by persons eating
raw ham infected with this disease. Fortunately the means of prevention
is very simple and implies merely the thorough cooking of the meat. If
persons will avoid eating raw or underdone swine flesh in any of its
varieties, no danger need be apprehended.
In general, it should be remembered that any animals dying of diseases
are not fit for food, and this applies to all animals, from the largest
to the smallest. Animals dying by accident, of course, are exceptions,
but if diseased animals, animals dying a natural death, and animals out
of condition are eliminated, the quality of food supplied from any
individual farm may be approved so far as the animal itself is
concerned.
_The slaughter-house._
There is, however, the further question of the sanitary condition of the
slaughter-house and the care of the meat after being dressed. It may be
that one gets accustomed to the sight of the filthy barns or out-houses
so often used for slaughtering. Places infected with flies and other
insects, overrun with rats, and the effluvia of which is easily
noticeable at a distance of half a mile, are not uncommon and suggest
their own condemnation. While it is not possible to directly associate
any particular disease with such a condition of the slaughter-house, yet
such conditions must result in a rapid development of putrefactive
bacteria, in the deposit by flies of different micro-organisms brought
from the festering heaps of offal and manure in the vicinity, and must
prevent the maintenance of the flesh in the clean and wholesome
condition in which it may have been up to the time of hanging in such a
place. A well-kept slaughter-house will have the ceilings, side walls,
and partitions frequently painted, or else scrubbed and washed. The
floor of the building, particularly, should be made water-tight, with
proper drains so that the blood shall not remain on the floor to
saturate the wood and develop decay. An abundance of clean water should
be provided, so that the area may be thoroughly washed as often as used,
with proper drains provided for carrying away the dirty water. The
ventilation of the building should be complete, and provision should be
made for lifting and moving carcasses without handling.
In most small slaughter-houses, the obnoxious practice prevails of
maintaining a herd of swine to consume the entrails of the slaughtered
animals, and a more fearsome and disgusting spectacle than a dozen
lean, active hogs fighting over recently deposited entrails and
wallowing up to their bellies in filth can hardly be imagined. Nor is
this any fanciful picture. The writer has seen it over and over again,
the income from the hogs thus fed being one of the principal assets of
the establishment. Such hog meat is not fit for food. The refuse from
the slaughter-house ought to be carried away and buried; its fertilizing
value will not be lost if it be put in the garden, and the effect of the
prompt removal of this refuse will be to improve the character of the
entire slaughter-house.