Inspection of Meat.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8055, 2 November 1897, Page 4

Inspection of Meat.

Ik an Editorial the Christchiireh Press states :— She Selwyn County Council has had before it from time to time a proposal to erect public abattoirs, but the matter has only been taken up in a more or less halfhearted way, and nothing so fai has really been done. Other towns in the colony, with not half the population of Christchiireh, have fouud it necessary to take proper measures to secure the thorough inspection of meat slaughtered for human consumption, and yet the local bodies in this important centre are apparently content with the present state of things. It is impossible that the inspector of slaughterhouses can do the work efficiently wjth so many different killing places to look after, and practically the only check he has upon disease is by the inspection of fat cattle as they pass through the sale yards, and even then he can do no more than deal with those animals showing some form of disease externally. The great proportion of diseased animals that are affected internally thus escape the eye of the inspector, and it is only by means of public abattoirs, where a duly qualified man may be present to see every animal slaughtered, that the public can have any guarantee that the meat they consume is perfectly wholesome. Only last week Mr Jarman, the inspector of slaughterhousesfor the Solwyn County Council, took notice of a young fat cow at the Addington saleyards that had but a small lump on her throat, so smallarid indistinct that nine persons out of ten would have overlooked it, but this was sufficient to cause him to suspect the presence of tuberculosis, and an examination after death proved that his suspicions were correct. A tuberculous mass, some three and a half inches long and three inches wide, was found in the throat close to the root of the tongue, and after this was removed the carcase was passed as fit for human consumption. The rule that Mr Jarman and the Government stock inspectors adopt is that where the lungs and liver of a beast are not affected the carcase may be passed, but it appears to us to be a scandalous thing that the meat from an animal affected, such as the one slaughtered last week, should be exposed for sale without any warning being given to the public as to its real nature. On the Continent the system adopted is to sterilise the carcase of a tuberculous animal and to cell it branded as such. Here no such safeguard as sterilisation is adopted, and the public are, without any warning whatever, asked to buy meat that may be full of the bacillus of tuberculosis. We do not approve of the Continental system, however, but have always held that it would be a far wiser policy to condemn as unfit for food all tuberculous flesh, and recompense the owner for its loss. At any rate the carcase of an animal diseased to the extent of the one mentioned above should never have been allowed to go into a butcher's shop ; and it is only by the apathy of the local bodies and of the public themselves that such a practice goes on unchecked. The sooner public slaughter - houses are erected and efficient inspection carried out the better it will be for the health of the community.