The communicability to man of diseases from animals used as food / by Henry Behrend.

  • Behrend, Henry, active 1881-1893.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The communicability to man of diseases from animals used as food / by Henry Behrend. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    beast. The communication of the disease to man, says Gamgee, one of the highest authorities, admits of no doubt; and Mr. Vacher, the Medical Officer of Health for Birkenhead, in a paper read at the Cambridge meeting, asserts very decidedly that if imperfectly cooked meat from an animal afEected with this malady be eaten, it undoubtedly places the consumer within reach of infection. The class of diseases of cattle known technically under the name of Anthrax, of which there are several varieties, is certainly communicable to man by ingested flesh. The investigation of this question has been conducted chiefly by French and German physiologists, and they are unanimous as to the facility with which the malady can be conveyed as food, and as to its fatal character ; indeed, Mr. Yacher asserts that the tenacity with which the flesh of the affected animal retains the infection is so great, that it is impossible to assign a limit to it, or to the peril of the consumer. In respect to Erysipelas in cattle, the communication of the disease to man from infected food, though exceedingly probable, is scarcely capable of direct proof—because, first, the malady is quite as common in man as it is in animals ; and, secondly, it occupies such a peculiar position between specific and simple diseases, that when an outbreak occurs, it is impossible to say whether it is due to contagion or not. It is, however, so frequently met with, especially in sheep and pigs, that the possibility of its conveying its special infection should never be overlooked, and it should be condemned as utterly unfit for human food, especially as flesh scarcely showing any physical signs of the disease may, nevertheless, be found actively infective, owing to the insidious manner n which the poison of erysipelas is conveyed. Lastly, the chief interest of this inquiry centres in the question of the communicability of Tuberculosis from animals to man, because not only is this class of maladies the most destructive of all to which human beings are liable (being accountable for at least one-fifth of the entire mortality of the country), but also because, though it was long a matter of doubt whether the disease as it exists in cattle was identical with that of man, this question has now been solved in the afiirmative, and the evidence of the communicability of the disease is rapidly gaining strength. It is only, comparatively, recently that the suspicion of tubercle being conveyed to the consumers of flesh so tainted has been enter- tained ; but its inoculability is no longer a matter of dispute, and it has been repeatedly proved that the malady can be produced by feeding with the flesh or milk of diseased cattle. There is no doubt that thousands of animals in this condition are slaughtered and sold for food, and the only method of prevention recommended by Mr. Fleming is the establishment of public abattoirs through- out the country, the inspection of all carcases about to be issued from them as food, and the condemnation and destruction of all such as are found affected with this malady. It is, indeed, highly probable that much of the infantile scrofula and tubercle so prevalent among all classes, and especially the poor, is attributable to the consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous cattle. The prevalence of the disease among bovine animals is known to be very great though, owing to the absence of sanitary inspection of cowsheds and slaughter- houses, it cannot be exactly estimated. But it appears to be largely on the in-