any butcher to sell meat that does not bear the stamp of the meatinspector. In Montgomery all meat-producing animals are killed in a central slaughter-house under the supervision of a meat-inspector. These systems, and all that are followed in European countries, place the responsibility of deciding whether a given carcass is suitable for food upon an inspector who is trained in animal pathology.

In some other cities, as Philadelphia, the meat-inspection system is based upon an entirely different principle. There are laws prohibiting the sale of diseased or unwholesome meat, and it is assumed that the butcher is always competent to determine this point. Under this system detectives or police-officers are appointed to visit slaughter-houses, markets, and butcher-shops, hunt for diseased or unwholesome meat, which is condemned by a veterinary adviser called in by them, and the seller is often prosecuted. It is scarcely necessary to say that this system is undesirable: First, because it does not include an inspection of all meat sold, and inevitably permits the consumption of much that is injurious; and, second, because it assumes knowledge on the part of the butcher that he cannot possibly possess, and makes him responsible for conditions that he cannot recognize. The system is therefore incomplete, and as a permanent system it is unjust. Its chief advantage. lies in the fact that it tends to make butchers more careful, so that gross pathological conditions do not reach their stalls, and a portion of the diseased meat that would otherwise be placed upon the market is barred. However, such a system constitutes a beginning in the right direction, but no municipality should be satisfied with it if a better can be obtained.

Municipal meat-inspection is of more importance in the East than in the West, because tuberculosis is more prevalent in this region, and a great many worn-out dairy-cows are sent to the shambles. Many of these cattle are afflicted with tuberculosis and other chronic ailments. They are frequently emaciated, and constitute the most dangerous class of beef-animals. Philadelphia is situated in the midst of a bountiful dairy-district, and is a large consumer of these animals. They are not killed in a large central abattoir under constant supervision, but in numerous little slaughter-houses scattered throughout the city and its suburbs. There are about one hundred slaughter-houses in Philadelphia. Many of them are quite small, situated on back streets surrounded by stables and dwelling-houses. In these establishments cattle are frequently killed at night, or very early in the morning, and

are not inspected at all. Occasionally, and as often as possible, the inspector drops in while the carcasses are being dressed, and his vigilance is rewarded almost daily by the discovery of a diseased and dangerous animal. The business of these slaughterhouses is conducted so irregularly that it is not possible to properly control them without having almost as many meat-inspectors as slaughter-houses, and if the force were enlarged to these dimensions the sanitary conditions and the surroundings of the slaughterhouses would still be such as to seriously injure the wholesomeness and keeping qualities of much of the meat dressed in them.

A further reason for a better system of meat-inspection here is that there is a constant and growing demand for many parts of carcasses which are more frequently diseased than the flesh, and were formerly thrown away. Our ever-increasing foreign population consumes viscera for which there was no market a few years ago, and meat-inspectors frequently find that such organs are diseased to an extent that renders them unwholesome, while the rest of the carcass can safely be sold. As a result of the fact that inspectors are not constantly present, a great many diseased carcasses are unquestionably sold, and frequently without the knowledge of the butcher who handles them. His training is not sufficient to enable him to detect important symptoms and lesions. In some cases, however, he does detect and remove them so thoroughly that the suspicions of the meat-inspector are not aroused.

The conditions that prevail in Philadelphia are not unique. They exist in almost every city in this country, and it is largely on account of the multiplicity of slaughter-houses that thorough systems of meat-inspections have not been more generally established.. An adequate control of the meat-supply of Philadelphia cannot be enforced without a great extension of the present force or a concentration of the business of slaughtering. The latter plan is supported by the experience of all of the older civilized countries, and is to be recommended not only because it would facilitate the inspection of meat, but for several other reasons as well. It would do away with all of the small, poorly equipped, badly managed slaughter-houses, which are in many cases nuisances in their respective neighborhoods. It would make it unnecessary to drive cattle through the streets, a practice that blocks traffic, frightens people, and at times occasions serious accidents. It would give small butchers the advantages enjoyed by wholesalers; they could use the facilities of the large slaughter-house, which are immeasurably superior to their individual establish

ments, and the cold-storage system could be used by all, with economy to the dealer and advantage and increased wholesomeness of the meat to the consumer. The offal and the condemned organs and carcasses could be disposed of to better advantage. Local meat would gain in reputation, if such a system were enforced, and trade could be built up on its merits, and competition. with Western beef would be less difficult.

Moreover, it has been shown by repeated trials of this system that instead of increasing the cost of meat it tends to reduce it.

A large establishment can be conducted by coöperation between butchers at less expense than when each has his own establishment. In Europe such union or central abattoirs are owned by municipalities, and undoubtedly this is the most desirable system, because under it all butchers are assured equal rights and privileges. It has been found that the rentals derived from these establishments are sufficient not only to pay the running expenses, but to afford a reasonable return for the investment. The whole system is not only of great advantage to the consumer of meats, but it subjects butchers to no hardship whatever, and makes it more convenient and cheaper for them to conduct their trade.

SOME OF THE MORE PREVALENT DISEASES AFFECTING; ANIMALS.1

BY A. W. CLEMENT, V.S.,

STATE VETERINARIAN, BALTIMORE, MD.

THE subject of this paper is a somewhat long and wearying one, but I shall confine my remarks to the discussion of some of the diseases which are communicable from man to animals, or vice versa, with one exception that of the disease affecting horses, which has of late been epidemic in some parts of our State. The diseases which are transmissible from man to animals and from animals to man are very interesting, and are of importance to the community. They are diseases to which a very considerable amount of study has been devoted, which has been attended with a very great amount of good. What Koch has done for tuberculosis, and what Pasteur has done for rabies, will long be remembered as the very bulwarks of modern medicine.

The question of tuberculosis alone is of great importance, both as a commercial question and as one affecting the life and comfort

of a very considerable portion of our community. A disease which causes the death of one in five, or one in seven, of our population is no laughing matter, I can assure you-a disease which is causing to-day more money to be spent upon it than are all diseases to which humanity is susceptible; a disease which is preventable to a great extent, and one to which science is devoting more attention to-day than it is to any disease affecting man or animals. It is an infectious disease; there is no doubt about this, as all of you who are physicians, and as many of you who are not physicians, know. It is not only an infectious disease, but the means of infection have been thoroughly studied. The organism causing the disease was isolated by Koch, and its properties are well known to all men who work in laboratories. They know that the organism can be detected in organs affected; that it can be grown outside of the body in proper nutriment, and that if inoculated into a healthy animal that animal will probably become tuberculous. Knowing these things as we do, it behooves mankind to do all in its power to prevent the poison from accumulating in the bodies of individuals. Just how to do this is a question which has agitated and is now agitating the minds of scientific investigators. Whether by curative agents, or rather by antitoxic agents, to produce a condition of body which is antagonistic to the growth of the tubercle bacilli ; whether by bettering the conditions of humanity so as to make them stronger, better able to withstand the attacks of the tubercle bacilli; or whether to enforce a quarantine upon people suffering from the disease and against all food-products which may in any way transmit the disease. These, I say, are the main lines of work of the sanitarian to-day, and are more or less fruitful in their results.

Now I do not wish to be called an extremist; I do not wish to be an alarmist; but I do believe that the question of our milksupply has very much to do with the disease in children and in adults who drink much of it, and who are in any way delicate. Tubercle bacilli have repeatedly been found in the milk of cows which were visibly affected, and also in the milk of cows which did not show any of the characteristic symptoms of the disease. All milk from cattle which react to the tuberculin-test should be condemned and the cattle slaughtered. This may seem a harsh statement, and one which the dairymen of the State will not relish so well; but it is nevertheless a fact. It will cost a lot of money, and who is to pay it? Is the State to do it, or are the producers themselves to do it directly? I think the latter. I do not be

lieve the State can do it directly. Some States have expended large sums of money, and are to-day expending large sums of money, to eradicate the disease from cattle, and I am much of the opinion that it is, to a large extent, a waste of money. Government supervision of such work is always more expensive than the same work undertaken and carried out as a private enterprise. Still, the work ought to be done, and ought to be done as long as tuberculosis exists, and better have the State do it than not to have it done at all. While I say that the State ought not to do it, I do not mean by any means that the State ought not to have anything to do with it. I do think that the State, through its proper office, should have control of the work, but that it should be paid for by the producer himself.

Certain men in the medical and veterinary profession are to be trusted, and more are not. Certain ones will give an honest opinion, while more will give an opinion based upon the amount of money involved in the transaction, and the one opinion may have just as much weight with the public as the other. Before he is allowed to inspect dairy-stables and give certificates, the inspector should first receive the indorsement of the Live-stock Sanitary Board, and this indorsement should be evidence to the public of his fitness for the position. What the public need is to be educated up to a pure milk-supply, and a pure milk-supply can only be assured where the stables are under the constant supervision of a veterinarian, and of an honest veterinarian, too. Why would it not be well for the larger of our milk-dairies to unite and form a syndicate or trust for the production of pure milk? to have their stables inspected and their cattle tested by a competent man, and advertise this fact to the public? How long would it be before other dairies would have to get in line or close up shop? If only a few could be gotten to do this at first, what an educator it would be to the public. Objection will be raised to the cost, but how much less the cost would be than if attempted by the State, and how much greater would be the result? The only way to insure pure milk is by inspection of the dairy-stables, not by the inspection of milk after it arrives at its destination in the city, though that would have to be done, too, to provide against the practice of some dairies watering the milk to increase the amount.

Tuberculosis is prevalent in the State of Maryland among its cattle; this has been proven by a system of inspection inaugurated by the present Live-stock Sanitary Board, which shows that 1 per cent. have tuberculosis to the naked eye. That is, so