[Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City.

  • Sheffield (England). City Council.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    196/208 (page 192)
    (b) Private Slaughterhouses. Tliei’c is one private slaughterhouse iu the City. Only pigs are killed there and 6,591 pigs were slaughtered during the year, all being examined by a Meat Inspector specially detailed for this duty. 177 part carcases of pigs representing a total weight of 4,090 lbs. were condemned at this slaughterhouse. (c) Fresh Meat from Outside Sources. IMore than 500 tons of fresh carcases and oft'als were brought into the City from animals which had been dressed in slaughterhouses outside the City boundary. Local legislation requires that, unless the meat has been inspected and passed by the Local Authority in which the animal was slaughtered, notice shall be given naming the place and time at which the meat can be insiiected. In some cases “ outside ” meat was submitted for inspection at the Abattoir before sale. This action was purely a voluntary one on the part of the butchers concerned. Some butchers still insisted on submitting the meat for inspection at their shops. In view of the difficulty of identifying meat which does not bear the official stamp of a local authority as authorised by the IMinistry of Agriculture, the City Council is seeking powers which will ensure that no person shall otfer for sale or sell oi deposit for sale any meat or any ]iart of the carcase of an animal Avhich shall have been brought into the City until after the same shall have been taken for inspection to the Sheffield Corporation Abattoir and there inspected by an Officer of the Corporation.” 3,280 visits were made to slaughterhouses and shops. Periodic inspection was made of home-killed “ stamped ” meat and also of imported carcases bearing the certificate of inspection of the country of origin. In all cases in which meat was condemned it was handed over voluntarily by the butchers to the Corporation. In no case was it necessary to seize it to obtain a Magistrate’s Order for its destruction. The Corporation paid compensation at the rate of half-a-crown a hundredweight foi condemned carcases and a shilling a hundredweight for condemned offal. The carcase meat was weighed and the weight of the offal was calculated on average weights for each organ. The Corporation also purchased certain other material from the butchers such as cattle uteri and sheep and calves’ middles. Some of the material, and a quantity of condemned meat and offal, was used by the Corporation for the manufacture of by-pioducts. A total weight of 1,790 tons 11 cwts. 3 qrs. of “material” was removed from the Abattoir during the year, of which 850 tons 18 cwts. 3 qrs. were used for the manufacture of by¬ products and 939 tons 13 cwts. were destroyed. Mechanical Stunning of Animals. Under the Slaughter of Animals Act 1933 the Corporation supplied the workmen and necessary apparatus for the mechanical stunning of animals slaughtered in the Abattoir. Cattle were stunned by the captive bolt (Schermer) pistol, and calves, sheep and pigs were stunned by the electrical method. The electrical stunning of cattle has been practised satisfactorily in the isolation slaughterhouse but up to now it has not been found practicable on these animals in the main slaughterhalls. A charge of a penny a head is made for stunning cattle and pigs and a Jd. a head for sheep and calves.