The painless extinction of life in animals designed for human food / by Henry Maccormac, M.D.

  • MacCormac, Henry.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The painless extinction of life in animals designed for human food / by Henry Maccormac, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    to overdrive the poor brute, to suffer the gutters of our towns to run with gore, and animals to be put to death in the vicinity of, nay in, the very shops where their flesh is sold. Persons should be licensed to slay animals pro- perly. It ought not to be tolerated that every in- competent or half competent fellow should flesh his gory axe or prentice hand without proper control and direction, at the cost of the suffering creatures whose frames we allow ourselves to appropriate for the better sustentation of our own. Some short time ago the humanity of the public was shocked at the accounts published of vivisec- tions. But all the horrors, real or alleged, of vivi- section sink into nothingness contrasted with those of the slaughterhouses which yet abound all over the land. Our mode of killing animals is still as barbarous as it was in the darkest ages, is yet as savage as among any savages. Attempts have been made by what is called pithing, also by the insufSation of air or water into the pleural cavities so as to hinder the lungs from acting, to lessen the pangs of the expiring brute. Pithing, when properly performed, puts a speedy end to life. But a slight movement on the part of the animal to be sacrificed,;or any want of skill on the part of the operator, lessens the certainty of the trenchant blade reaching the spinal marrow through the restricted triangular space at the nape of the neck by which it is alone accessible. Blowing air into the jugular vein, and forcing air, water, or other fluid into the cavity outside the luug by a