[Report 1914] / Medical Officer of Health, Bury St Edmunds Borough.

  • Bury St. Edmunds (England). Borough Council. no2007054786.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1914] / Medical Officer of Health, Bury St Edmunds Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/44 (page 14)
    Bake- houses. arrangement of the premises. It would be impossible to reconstruct our slaughter-houses in such a way as to make them conform with this first principle, and on this ground I can see no remedy but a public abattoir. As regards stunning, tlie pole-axe is used for cattle, and in some instances calves and pigs are also stunned, but sheep never. The butchers have continued in the use of the pole-axe as being an instrument with which they are more familiar. It is impossible to escape the feeling that the use of some infallible mechanical contrivance is highly desirable, as one can never be sure, however efficient the inspection, that the pole-axe is not sometimes entrusted to the hands of unskilled operators. Even more strongly do I feel that the stunning of pigs and sheep, which is now proved to be such a simple process, should be made compulsory in every slaughter-house, as there can be no question of the amount of unnecessary suffering caused by the primary use of the knife. It is only fair to say that the butchers have always shown the greatest possible anxiety to conduct their premises on as efficient and humane lines as possible, and that the difficulty of providing a public abattoir does not end with the question of cost, either to the ratepayers or to the owners of existing premises, but that the provision of a suitable site would present a serious problem. The sanitary condition of premises where foods are prepared, stored, or exposed for sale, chiefly eating-houses, is generally satisfactory. There are 31 bake-houses, one of wliich is specially licensed as an underground bake-house. These have been regularly inspected. Their defects arise from the present state of the law affecting all bake-houses. The first diffi- culty depends on the definition of a retail bake-house. Many of these have no shops distinct from their bake- houses, with the result that customers coming in to buy bread constantly deposit dirt of every description on the