Meat and its inspection : a practical guide for meat inspectors, students, and medical officers of health / by Arthur R. Litteljohn.

Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Meat and its inspection : a practical guide for meat inspectors, students, and medical officers of health / by Arthur R. Litteljohn. 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.

    59/436 (page 43)
    Carcase of the Ox.—This is usually met with in the slaughterhouse between the age of one and a half to six years. The muscles of the neck, shoulders, and hind- quarters, are not so well developed as in the bull; as a result the hind-quarters are less rotund. The penis itself and the retractor penis muscle are less developed, whilst the erector penis muscle is atrophied almost to absence. As in the bull, the angle formed by the meeting of the line of the ischio-pubic symphysis and the adipose tissue of the thigh exposes a triangular-shaped area of the gracilis muscle. The ox carcase has a well-developed layer of subcutaneous fat, which forms a prominent nodulated mass (' scrotal fat') completely hiding the inguinal canal. The tubercle on the anterior part of the ischio-pubic symphysis is not so well developed as in the bull. The flesh in young oxen of nine to fifteen months old is light red, firm, and elastic, and has a fair proportion of fat. In adult oxen the flesh is of a florid or light red hue. Immediately after slaughter the flesh is flabby and brownish in colour, but after a short exposure to the air it becomes fairly dry, elastic, and of a brick-red colour. Eigor mortis occurs in less than twelve hours, and should be marked. An opinion on the flesh should not be given till rigor mortis has occurred. Ox flesh usually has a marbled appearance from fat in the connective tissue around the muscular bundles ; this is absent in the limbs, and most marked in the longissimus dorsi muscle of the back. On cross-section the flesh is finely grained as a whole, but somewhat coarse in the neck and sternum. The flesh of fattened heifers and young cows is very similar to that of oxen. Old oxen fattened shortly before slaughter have a darker, firmer, and tougher flesh, with no fat marbling, but fat is deposited under the skin, round the kidneys, and in the omentum and mesenteries. In fat oxen the flesh itself constitutes about 40 per cent, of the body weight, and the bones about 7 per cent.; in poor oxen, CO per cent, and 12 per cent, respectively.