Handbook of meat inspection / by Robert Ostertag ; translated by E. Vernon Wilcox. With an introduction by John R. Mohler.

Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Handbook of meat inspection / by Robert Ostertag ; translated by E. Vernon Wilcox. With an introduction by John R. Mohler. 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.

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    After the hog has passed an ante aud post mortem examination the carcass is moved to the cooling room, where three samples of muscle are taken by one of the government employees from the prescapular region, the pillar of the diaphragm and from the psoas muscle. Where the liver or tongue is to be exported a sample of this organ is likewise taken for special examination. The specimens are placed in a small tin box, which contains a duplicate tag to the one fastened upon the carcass from which the samples were taken. The boxes are then carried to the microscopic room, where they are care- fully examined by the microscopist and his assistants. Small por- tions of each of the three muscles are snipped off and prepared by mincing into three thin, evenly-distributed translucent mounts held together in a. compressor. Each preparation is then examined separately under low magnification by placing it in a frame on a. mechanical stage of a microscope. By means of a specially con- structed stage this frame which holds the compressor is made to. run up and down on two parallel grooves and by means of a saw- tooth arrangement at the bottom and top of the stage, the compres- sor is forced onward, with mechanical precision, so that each field overlaps another. Therefore, every portion of the preparation must necessarily be in the field at some time during the examination. No microscopist is permitted to examine more than eighty slides per day and the work performed is always subject to the re-examination of the one in charge of this work. In case living trichinae or non- disintegrated dead trichinae are found in the mounts, the sample is marked “C” and the carcass is taken from the cooling, room and rendered into lard at a temperature not lower than 150° F. or turned into prepared meats by boiling until the interior is completely- cooked. Those preparations in which degenerated or calcified trichinae or trichinae cysts or any substance which causes the least suspicion, owing to its similarity to the above, are marked “B,” and the meat of the carcass is withheld from shipment to those countries that require microscopic inspection, although free to be used in other trade. When the microscopist has found an absence of trichina, trichina-like cysts or any suspicious bodies, the prepara- tions are marked “A,” and the carcasses represented are used for filling the orders of those governments demanding trichina-free pork. Before this microscopically examined meat is taken out of the cooler to be cut up, all the rejected carcasses must be withdrawn and placed by themselves to be treated as above mentioned. Alt other meats in the cutting room are put away and the tables, chutes, blocks and carriers cleared of all pork previously handled. Th&