of the flesh should be immersed in a solution of liquor potassæ, containing 1 part of the alkali to 8 of water, and allowed to remain for a few minutes only until the muscle becomes clear; if allowed to remain too long the trichine will be destroyed. The white specks then become clearly visible, and the worm will usually, be seen coiled up, and, if not visible, it may often be rendered so by the addition of a drop or two of weak hydrochloric acid. The parts said to be most infested are the diaphragm, the intercostal muscles, and those of the eye and jaw.

The presence of trichinæ during life may sometimes be determined by an examination of the muscles under the tongue.

Pork infected with trichinæ íis generally darker than usual on account of the irritating or inflammatory action of the creature lodged in the muscles, and when the parasite is encysted the meat presents a speckled appearance, the minute white cysts containing the worms being just visible to the naked eye. As found in the human subject it is usually in the encysted state, when it has passed beyond its dangerous condition and has become harmless. In most cases, when thus discovered, there is no record of its action, and therefore it was once thought to be an innocent visitor, but we now know that while it was free, that is, before nature had barricaded it up in the little cyst, its presence was the cause of frightful disorder, kisling about 50 per cent. of its victims in terrible agony.'--Letheby.

The young worms, being hatched in the body, migrate to all the muscles, causing the most excruciating pain, so that the patient, fearing to move his inflamed muscles, would lie motionless on his back; and, if he did not die in this state of the disorder, nature came to the rescue and imprisoned the creature by surrounding it with a fibrinous cyst, where it lives for years, being ready at any moment to acquire activity when it is swallowed and released from its cell.'— Letheby.

The ordinary mode of their propagation is by eating the raw or imperfectly cooked flesh. Cooking and smoking the flesh are but imperfectly protective. A temperature from 66° to 68° C. destroys the trichinæ, but cold and decomposition of the meat do not impair their vitality,

The rot.-Another disease occasioned by a parasitic animal, the fluke, Distoma hepaticum, is the rot. This infests particularly the livers of animal and men, sheep being very liable to it, especially in wet seasons.

• The way in which the disease is produced in sheep is curious. Ova are passed from the gall-bladder of infected animals into the intestines, and so upon the land ; finding a moist situation they are soon hatched into ciliated embryos, which swim about and become developed into cylindrical sacs of minute hydatids; these attach themselves to some mollusc, as a small snail. In wet weather the infected snails crawl upon the grass and are eaten by the sheep, and then the hydatid speedily changes his condition and becomes a fluke. When it is found in the body of man it has, perhaps, been drunk with water or eaten with some aquatic plant, as watercress, &c.'-Letheby.

There is no evidence to show that the liver of the sheep containing frukes or echinococci, when consumed in this country, gives rise to the same disease, but in Iceland the disease is derived from sheep and cattle, which in their turn become infected through the tænia of the dog. The symptoms of fluke disease are dulness, a rapid wasting, diarrhea, yellowness of the eyes, falling of the hair, and dropsical swellings.

Strongylus filaria.---This parasite occurs in the lungs, giving rise to a disease of those organs resembling phthisis.

In times of scarcity of meat, as in war, it may be necessary to allow of the use of the meat of diseased animals, but in this case certain precautions should be observed. The animals should be bled freely, the flesh or muscles only should be used, and the meat should be thoroughly cooked. The flesh of animals affected with smallpox, cysticerci and trichina should not on any account be used.

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CHAPTER XXV.

POTTED MEATS AND FISH AND THEIR

ADULTERATIONS.

DEFINITION OF ADULTERATION.

Meat or fish not acknowledged in the names under which the articles are sold,

and any foreign vegetable or mineral substance. POTTED meats and fish are adulterated, first, by admixture with substances added for the sake of bulk, weight, and cheapness; and second, with others designed to heighten their colour.

Thus they are sometimes adulterated with large quantities of flour, and in other cases, it is alleged, with even chalk and plaster of Paris.

Again, sprats and other cheap fish are often ground up, and after being seasoned, are sold either in the separate or mixed state for real Gorgona paste.

Lastly, the majority of these pastes were formerly very commonly coloured with large quantities of Venetian red and bole Armenian.

RESULTS OF THE EXAMINATION OF SAMPLES,

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Twenty-eight samples of potted meats and fish were examined a few years since, and with the following results :1. The samples of potted tongue and ham were entirely free from

adulteration. 2. Four out of the five samples of potted beef were artificially coloured

by means of the red earth, bole Armenian. 3. The whole of the samples of potted bloaters examined were highly

coloured with the before-named earthy substance. 4. One of the samples of bloater paste was adulterated in addition

with a large proportion of starch or flour, probably wheat flour

boiled. 5. The entire of the samples of anchovy paste analysed were still

more highly, and even vividly, coloured with very large quantities

of bole Armenian. 6. Two of the anchovy pastes were in addition adulterated with flour ;

one with a large percentage of wheat flour. 7. Of the twenty-eight samples of potted meats and fish subjected to

analysis, no less than twenty-three were more or less impregnated with the red earthy materiał, bole Armenian.

This picture of the adulteration of potted meats and fish is surely bad and disgraceful enough, but we are happy to say that since the time when the analyses above recorded were made a very great improvement has taken place in the preparation of these articles, and bole Armenian is now but seldom made use of.

The difference in the appearance presented by the uncoloured samples contrasted with those in which the bole Armenian had been added was most striking, and usually sufficient to enable the observer to distinguish by the eye alone the samples to which this scandalous addition had been made. While in the one case the paste was of a pale pink and perfectly natural hue, in the other the colour was such as the flesh, when pounded, of no fish or animal ever presents, it being a deep brick red.

In the report on bottled anchovies we have shown that one of the principal reasons why artificial colouring matters are employed is to conceal the dirt contained in the brine in which the fish is imported. In the present instance there is not even this poor excuse; the only purpose served by the employment of the bole Armenian being to cause the potted articles to present a striking appearance, but one which at the same time is, in our opinion, most unnatural, and but little inviting.

In the case too of potted meats and fish, the colouring ingredients cannot, as in anchovies, be got rid of in a measure by washing; for since they are incorporated with the paste, they must be entirely consumed with the meat or fish.

That the practice of adding large quantities of coloured earthy substances to articles of diet is dirty, injurious to health, and in some cases even dangerous to life, cannot be doubted. The chief medicinal ingredient in bole Armenian is oxide of iron ; this, although not dangerous, might in some instances be productive of prejudicial effects; but it sometimes happens that other red earths are used, and these, as well as also occasionally, although rarely, bole Armenian itself, are contaminated with red lead. For this poisonous substance each of the above twenty-eight samples were separately analysed, without however, we are happy to state, a particle of it being discovered in a single instance.

Mr. Richardson, then officer of the Local Board of Health of Newton Heath, near Manchester, gave the following evidence before the Committee on Adulteration, of 1855, in regard to the addition of horseflesh to potted meats, sausages, &c. :

We have in Newton five knackers' yards, and there is only one in Manchester. The reason is, that they have so much toleration in Newton; and it has been a source of great profit to them, because they have the means of selling the best portions of the horseflesh to mix with the potted meats.

'I can say for a fact that the tongues of horses particularly, and the best portions, such as the hind-quarters, of horses, are generally sold to mix with collared brawn, or pigs' heads as they are called with

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us, and for sausages and polonies. I understand, also, from those who have been in the habit of making them, that horseflesh materially assists the making of sausages ; it is a hard fibrine, and it mixes better and keeps them hard, and they last longer in the shop-window before they are sold, because otherwise the sausages run to water and become soft and pulpy. I believe horseflesh also materially assists German sausages; it keeps them hard.'

To the above account we may add that German sausages and polonies were at one time frequently coloured with large quantities of Venetian red or reddle.

DETECTION OF THE ADULTERATIONS OF POTTED MEATS AND FISH.

As we have seen, the chief adulterants of these articles are flour or starch, red ferruginous earths, as Venetian red and reddle, and sometimes, it is alleged, carbonate or sulphate of lime. Methods have been given elsewhere in this work for the detection and estimation of each of these substances, so that it is unnecessary to repeat them in this place.