Our slaughter-house system : a plea for reform / [C. Cash].

Cash, C.

Date:: 1907

Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Our slaughter-house system : a plea for reform / [C. Cash]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

45/230 (page 29)

veterinary surgeon, provided he lias had included in his curriculum of education a training in this particular matter. A sanitary inspector who has gone through a course of such training and an accredited examination may be for all practical purposes an efficient inspector. Probably the determining point will be that of expense, the larger towns, with extensive slaughter-houses, employing the former, and the smaller ones the latter. It may perhaps be of interest to give the following extract as bearing on the question. It is from a report of the Ptoyal Commission appointed to inquire into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals. The report states that— * There is a total absence of uniformity in the special qualifications required of the persons employed as meat inspectors by the sanitary authorities in different places, as may be seen by a return presented to the Plouse of Commons in 1896, showing the previous vocations of those acting in that capacity. In Battersea, for instance, four plumbers and three carpenters discharged the office of meat inspector ; in Hackney the duties have been committed to two plumbers, one carpenter, one compositor, one bricklayer, one florist, one builder, one surveyor, and one stonemason. In Portsmouth a solitary butcher has received as colleagues three school teachers, one medical dispenser, one carpenter, and one tram-conductor.’ The report adds that ‘ A number of witnesses expressed the opinion that veterinary inspectors alone should be employed. On this question we are satisfied that some pathological training is the proper basis upon which to build the knowledge required by a meat inspector, and that, wherever practicable, veterinary surgeons, thus