Handbook of meat inspection / by Robert Ostertag ; translated by E. Vernon Wilcox. With an introduction by John R. Mohler.

Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Handbook of meat inspection / by Robert Ostertag ; translated by E. Vernon Wilcox. With an introduction by John R. Mohler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    may be offered to tlie Lord.” The Mosaic, like the Egyptian, laws distinguished between “clean” and “unclean” food animals. The Jewish method of slaughtering food animals was not prescribed first by the Mosaic laws, but by the Talmud, which was edited by learned Jews during the first five years of the Christian era. The Phoenicians, like the Egyptians, abstained from eating the meat of cows and hogs, but held the meat of dogs in high esteem. Berosus relates from the books of Oannes that the Babylonians established detailed regulations concerning diet. In Athens in the earliest times there was established a system of market police, whose officers (agoranomoi) were intrusted with the proper conduct of the meat traffic. The Athenians Avere for- bidden to eat the meat of a lamb which had not been shorn once. According to Hippocrates, the Greeks Avere fond of the meat of dogs which had been castrated Avhile young. Alexander the Great forbade the Ljpanese the eating of fish for the reason that the flesh decomposed so rapidly. In ancient Rome, from the year 388 of the founding of the city, two curule sediles (cereales) exercised control of the meat market, public shops, and the cooking of meat. Meat condemned by the mdiles was frequently thrown into the Tiber. In one number of Acta Populi Romani diurna, in the year 164 a.d., the folloAving notice is found: “The mdile Tetini punished the small butchers because they sold to the people meat which had not been pre- viously inspected by the authorities. The fines were devoted to the establishment of a temple to the goddesses.” The meat of goats Avas considered by the Romans as unwhole- some. On the other hand, the Romans possessed an almost morbid predilection for pork. Fifty different articles of food were made from pork. The sexual organs of female SAvine Avere especially sought for by the Romans during the existence of the Empire. Plutarch (De usu carnis) says: “Vulva porci nihil dulcius am pi a.” The dugs (sumen) of a sow which had just farroAved Avere not less esteemed and also the liver of an animal Avliich had been fattened on figs. The longing of the Romans for the genital organs of female swine and the extensive consumption of young pigs brought about such a great decrease in the number of hogs that the Emperor Severus forbade the slaughter of brood soavs and sucking- pigs,—an edict which was reissued by the Emperor Julianus. Hares were considered unclean and harmful to the digestion, and Avere, therefore, eaten only by poor people. The meat of rabbits,.