Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume Ii Part 48

[Footnote 26: Letheby.]

"Oxen," says M. Bizet, "yield of _best quality_ beef 57 per cent. of meat, and 43 per cent. waste. The waste includes the internal viscera, &c.

_Second quality_ of beef, 54 per cent. meat and 46 per cent. waste; _third quality_ beef, 51 per cent. meat and 49 per cent. waste. In milking-cows, 46 per cent. meat and 54 per cent. waste. Calves yield 60 per cent. meat, and 40 per cent. loss; and sheep yield 50 per cent. meat, and 50 per cent.

loss." Dr Parkes differs from Bizet as to the latter's value of the meat of the calf. He says the flesh of young animals loses from 40 to 50 per cent. in cooking.

It seems to be agreed, however, that animals when slaughtered should be neither too young nor too old. The flesh of young animals, although more tender, is less digestible than that of older ones; it is also poorer in salts, fat, and an alb.u.minous substance called _syntonin_.

=Consumption of Meat.= Dr Letheby, writing in 1868, says that in London "the indoor operatives eat it to the extent of 148 oz. per adult weekly; 70 per cent. of English farm labourers consume it, and to the extent of 16 oz. per man weekly; 60 per cent. of the Scotch, 30 of the Welsh, and 20 of the Irish also eat it. The Scotch probably have a larger allowance than the English, considering that braxy mutton[27] is the perquisite of the Scotch labourer; but the Welsh have only an average amount of 2-1/2 oz.

per adult weekly; and the Irish allowance is still less. It is difficult to obtain accurate returns of the quant.i.ty of meat consumed in London; but if the computation of Dr Wynter is correct, it is not less than 30-3/4 oz.

per head weekly, or about 4-1/2 oz. per day for every man, woman, and child. In Paris, according to M. Armand Husson, who has carefully collected the _octroi_ returns, "it is rather more than 49 oz. per head weekly, or just 7 oz. a day." Bondin states that throughout France the consumption is about 50 grammes daily, or under 1-3/4 oz.

[Footnote 27: See further on.]

Dr Letheby, in his work 'On Food,' gives the following as the characteristics of good meat:--

"1st. It is neither of a pale pink colour nor of a deep purple tint, for the former is a sign of disease, and the latter indicates that the animal has not been slaughtered, but has died with the blood in it, or has suffered from acute fever.

"2nd. It has a marked appearance from the ramifications of little veins of fat among the muscles.

"3rd. It should be firm and elastic to the touch, and should scarcely moisten the fingers--bad meat being wet, and sodden and flabby, with the fat looking like jelly or wet parchment.

"4th. It should have little or no odour, and the odour should not be disagreeable, for diseased meat has a sickly cadaverous smell, and sometimes a smell of physic. This is very discoverable when the meat is chopped up and drenched with warm water.

"5th. It should not shrink or waste much in cooking.

"6th. It should not run to water, or become very wet on standing for a day or so, but should, on the contrary, dry upon the surface.

"7th. When dried at a temperature of 212 or thereabout, it should not lose more than from 70 to 74 per cent. of its weight, whereas bad meat will often lose as much as 80 per cent.

"Other properties of a more refined character will also serve for the recognition of bad meat, as that the juice of the flesh is alkaline or neutral to test-paper, instead of being distinctly acid, and the muscular fibre, when examined under the microscope is found to be sodden and ill-defined."

_Unsound meat--diseased meat._ Dr Letheby, in his 'Lectures on Food,'

published in 1868, states that the seizure and condemnation, in London, of meat unfit for human food, during a period extending over seven years, amounted to 700 tons per annum, or to about 1-750th of the whole quant.i.ty consumed. These 700 tons he dissects into lbs. as follows:--"805,653 lbs.

were diseased, 568,375 lbs. were putrid, and 193,782 lbs. were from animals that had not been slaughtered, but had died from accident or disease. It consisted of 6640 sheep and lambs, 1025 calves, 2896 pigs, 9104 quarters of beef, and 21,976 joints of meat."

He admits, however, that this amount, owing to the difficulties and inefficiency of the mode of supervision, bears a very insignificant proportion to the actual quant.i.ty which escaped detection, and which was, therefore, partaken of as food. Professor Gamgee says that one fifth of the meat eaten in the metropolis is diseased. In 1863 the bodies of an enormous number of animals suffering from _rinderpest_, as well as from _pleuro-pneumonia_, were consumed in London; and we know that thousands of sheep die every year, in the country, of _rot_; the inference from which latter fact is that, since the carcases are neither eaten there nor buried on the spot, they are sent up to, and thrown upon, the London markets. The worst specimens find their way to the poorer neighbourhoods, where, as might be expected, their low price ensures a ready sale for them. These sales, it is said, mostly take place at night.

The above statements, which, if we exclude Professor Gamgee's figures, do not solve the problem as to the quant.i.ty of unsound meat consumed in London, not unreasonably justify the a.s.sumption that it is very considerable; and this being admitted, we should be prepared to learn that it was a fertile source of disease of a more or less dangerous character.

There is, however, such extensive divergence in the various data bearing upon this point, that no satisfactory solution of it can be said to be afforded. Thus, Livingstone states that, when in South Africa, he found that neither Englishmen nor natives could partake of the flesh of animals affected with _pleuro-pneumonia_ without its giving rise to malignant carbuncle, and sometimes, in the case of the natives, to death, and Dr Letheby attributes the increased number of carbuncles and phlegmons amongst our population to the importation from Holland of cattle suffering from the same disease. On the contrary, Dr Parkes says he was informed, on excellent authority, that the Caffres invariably consume the flesh of their cattle that die of the same epidemic, without the production of any ill effects. Again, there are numerous well-attested cases in which the flesh of sheep which have died from _braxy_ (a disease that makes great ravages amongst the flocks in Scotland) is constantly eaten without injurious results by the Scotch shepherd. The malady causes death in the sheep from the blood coagulating in the vital organs, and the sheep that so dies becomes the property of the shepherd, who, after removing the offal, is careful to cut out the dark congealed blood before cooking it.[28] Sometimes he salts down the carcase. In cases, however, where thorough cooking or an observance of the above precautions have been neglected, very dangerous and disastrous consequences have ensued. During the late siege of Paris large quant.i.ties of the flesh of horses with glanders appear to have been eaten with no evil consequences: and Mr Blyth, in his 'Dictionary of Hygiene,' quotes a similar case from Tardieu, who states that 300 army horses affected with glanders (_morve_) were led to St Germain, near Paris, and killed. For several days they served to feed the poor of the town without causing any injury to health.

[Footnote 28: Letheby.]

A similar exemption from any evil effect following the consumption of diseased flesh is recorded by Professor Brucke, of Vienna.

Not many years since the cattle of a locality in Bohemia, being attacked by _rinderpest_, were ordered by the Government to be slaughtered, after which they were buried. The poor people dug up the diseased carcases, cooked the meat, and ate it, with no injurious result.

Parent Duchatelet cites a case where the flesh of seven cows attacked with rabies was eaten without injury; and Letheby states that pigs with scarlet fever and spotted typhus have been used for food with equally harmless results. The flesh of sheep with smallpox had been found to produce vomiting and diarrha, sometimes accompanied with fever.

One obvious suggestion of the immunity from disease recorded in part of the cases above given is that the injurious properties of the flesh had been destroyed by the heat to which it had been subjected in the process of cooking, combined with the antiseptic and protective power of the gastric juice. The subject, however, has not been sufficiently examined to warrant the conclusion that every kind of unsound meat may be rendered innocuous by culinary means.

But even were this so the idea of partaking of meat which had once been unsound, from whatever cause, and, as in the instances above quoted, with the pustules of smallpox, the spots generated by typhus, and the rash of scarlet fever upon it, becomes unspeakably repulsive and revolting. But we must not be misled because of the difficulty of reconciling the contradictory statements above given, nor by the evidence some of them appear to afford as to the innocuous character of diseased meat, since it is just possible that closer and more prolonged observation of the facts may have led to different conclusions. Thus, for example, pork, infested with that formidable entozoon, the _Trichina spiralis_, had been partaken of for years, under the impression that it was a perfectly healthy food, until Dr Zencker, of Dresden, discovered that the parasite was the cause of a frightful disease, which he called _Trichinosis_, and which had hitherto baffled all attempts to find out its origin. Dr Letheby, writing on this subject, says: "I have often had occasion to investigate cases of mysterious disease, which had undoubtedly been caused by unsound meat. One of these, of more than ordinary interest, occurred in the month of November, 1860. The history of it is this:--A forequarter of cow-beef was purchased in Newgate Market by a sausage-maker who lived in Kingsland, and who immediately converted it into sausage-meat. Sixty-six persons were known to have eaten of that meat, and sixty-four of them were attacked with sickness, diarrha, and great prostration of vital powers. One of them died; and at the request of the coroner I made a searching inquiry into the matter, and I ascertained that the meat was diseased, and that it, and it alone, had been the cause of all the mischief."[29]

[Footnote 29: Letheby, 'Lectures on Food,' Longman and Co.]

Here are two instances in which but for subsequent investigation the evil effects narrated would not have been debited to diseased meat, but to some other cause.

"One of the princ.i.p.al and by far the most prolific sources of food-poisoning is the sausage, the eating of which, in Germany more particularly, has caused the death of a number of persons.

The sausages in which these poisonous qualities occasionally develop themselves are the large kinds made in Wurtemburg, in which district alone they have caused the deaths of more than 150 out of 400 persons during the last fifty years. The poisonous character of the sausage is said to develop itself generally in the spring, when it becomes musty, and also soft in the interior. It is then found to be acid to test paper, and to have a very disagreeable and tainted flavour.

Should it be eaten when in this state, after from about twelve to twenty-four hours the patient is attacked with severe intestinal irritation in the form of pains in the stomach and bowels by vomitings, and diarrha.

To these symptoms succeed great depression, coldness in the limbs, weak and irregular pulse, and frequent fainting fits. Should the sufferer be attacked with convulsions, and difficult respiration, the seizure generally ends in death. The nature of the poisonous substance that gives rise to these effects in the sausage has not yet been determined. Liebig believed them to be due to the presence in the meat of a particular animal ferment, which he conceived acted on the blood by catalysis, and thus rendered it diseased. Others have surmised that a poisonous organic alkaloid may have been produced in the decaying meat; and others again that the effects may have been caused by some deleterious substance of a fatty nature. M. Van den Corput was of opinion that the mischief was due to the presence in the meat of a poisonous fungus, which he calls a _sarcina botulina_. This last theory receives support from the fact that a peculiar mouldiness is always to be observed in these dangerous sausages, and that this is coincident with the development of their poisonous qualities.

Several effects have been produced by other kinds of animal food--as veal, bacon, ham, salt-beef, salt-fish, cheese, &c., and the food has usually been in a decayed and mouldy condition. It would be tedious if I were to detail, or even to enumerate the cases recorded by medico-legal writers; but I may perhaps refer to a few of them. In 1839 there was a popular fete at Zurich, and about 600 persons partook of a repast of cold roast veal and ham. In a few hours most of them were suffering from pain in the stomach, with vomiting and diarrha; and before a week had elapsed nearly all of them were seriously ill in bed. They complained of s.h.i.+verings, giddiness, headache and burning fever. In a few cases there was delirium, and when they terminated fatally there was extreme prostration of the vital powers. Careful inquiry was inst.i.tuted into the matter, and the only discoverable cause of the mischief was incipient putrefaction and slight mouldiness of the meat." A case is recorded by Dr Geisler of eight persons who became ill from eating bacon which was mouldy; and another by M.

Ollivier of the death of four persons out of eight, all of whom had partaken of partially decomposed mutton.

If some of the foregoing statements fail to demonstrate that the act of partaking of diseased meat is a necessary source of danger to health, there can be no such doubt as to the pernicious and perilous consequences which ensue when meat is consumed containing in its tissues the ova and larvae of certain parasitic creatures. If the fleshy part of a piece of measly pork be carefully examined, it will be found to be more or less dotted about with a number of little bladder-like spots, in size about as large as a hemp-seed.[30]

[Footnote 30: See article "Cysticerci."]

If now we carefully rupture one of these little bodies or cysts, there will be found in it a minute worm, which under the microscope will be seen to have a head from which proceed a number of little hooks that perform a very disagreeable office should the parasite be taken into the human stomach by any one making a meal off measly and undercooked pork. For, then, being liberated from its sac, or nidus, by the action of the gastric juice of the stomach on this latter, the creature pa.s.ses into the intestines. To these it attaches itself by means of the hooklets on its head, and instantly becomes a tapeworm, which grows by a succession of jointed segments it is able to develop, and each one of which is capable of becoming a separate and prolific tapeworm filled with countless eggs.

These eggs reach the land through the agency of manure (for they are found in the intestines of the horse), and from this source they get into the stomachs of pigs and oxen, where they hatch not into tapeworm, or _tenia_, but, travelling through the animal's stomach, burrow into its muscular tissue. Here they establish and envelop themselves in the little cyst or small bladder-like substance, whose presence, as explained, const.i.tutes the condition called "measly" pork, and here they remain dormant until such time as, taken into the stomach, they may again become tapeworms, to be again expelled and to perpetuate by their ova the round of metamorphosis. From the circ.u.mstance of their being met with enclosed in little sacs or cysts, these parasites have been termed _Cysticerci_. The variety of them we have just been considering as occurring in pork is called the _Cysticercus cellulosae_, whilst the tapeworm to which it gives rise is known as the _Tinea solium_.

Another variety of _Cysticercus_ is met with in the flesh of the ox, the cow, and the calf. In the human body this also develops into a tapeworm called the _Tinea mediocanellata_. Tapeworm is a very common disease in Russia and Abyssinia, and its prevalence is no doubt due to the habit of giving the children in those countries raw meat to suck, under the impression that the child is strengthened in consequence. From experiments made by Dr Lewis it was found that a temperature of 150 F., maintained for five minutes, was sufficient to destroy these cysticerci.

Another and more formidable entozoon, communicable by unsound meat, is the _Echinococcus hominis_,[31] which represents one of the metamorphoses of the _Tinea echinococcus_, the tapeworm of the dog. In Iceland, where a sixth of the population are said to suffer from the ravages of the _Echinococcus hominis_, it is the custom to feed the dogs on the flesh of slaughtered animals affected with this parasite, which in the body of the dog develops into a tapeworm. The innumerable eggs which the worm produces are, however, incapable of being hatched in the dog's intestines. They have to find another and more suitable habitat, and this is secured for them as follows:--Segments of the tapeworm, with their countless ova, being voided with dog's excrement, fall into the running water, and on to the fields and pastures, whence they gain their entrance into the stomachs of human beings, oxen, and sheep. Here the eggs become hatched, not into tapeworms, but into _Echinococci hominis_, or prospective tapeworms.

Burrowing through the membranes of the stomach, the echinococcus establishes itself most commonly in the liver, but not unfrequently in the spleen, heart, lungs, and even the bones of man. In the animal economy they enclose themselves in little sacs or cysts, and give rise to the most alarming and painful diseases, which hitherto have proved incurable. They attack the brain in sheep, and are the cause of the disease known as "staggers." Sheep are also infested by another parasite known as the _Distoma hepatica_, the ravages of which give rise in the sheep to that devastating disease--"the rot." The creature is also known by the name of the "liver-fluke," since it princ.i.p.ally attacks this important organ in the animal. The liver-fluke is of constant occurrence in the livers of diseased sheep, and unless destroyed by thorough cooking will of course pa.s.s into the human economy. The embryo fluke gains admission to the sheep's body through the instrumentality of small snails, to the sh.e.l.ls of which it attaches itself. In wet weather the snails crawl over the gra.s.s of the meadow which forms the pastures of the sheep, and are swallowed by it. Once in the sheep's stomach the embryo becomes a fluke, and commences its depredations on the animal's liver. After this, the reason why the rot attacks sheep after a continuance of wet weather will be evident.

[Footnote 31: See article "Echinococcus hominis."]

The most terrible of all the meat parasites is a minute worm about 1/30th of an inch long, found in the flesh of pork. This creature, which is named the _Trichina spiralis_ (from the form it a.s.sumes when coiled up in the little cyst or capsule which encloses it), when it gets conveyed into the human stomach with improperly cooked or underdone pork, soon becomes liberated from its confinement owing to the destruction of its envelope by the gastric juice. Once in the stomach the parasite grows rapidly, giving birth to innumerable young _trichinae_, which, by first boring through the membranes of the alimentary ca.n.a.l, pierce their way through the different parts of the body into the muscular tissue, where they become encysted, and where they remain until conditions favorable to their liberation again occur.

Until such time, however, as they have become enclosed in the cyst, their movements give rise to indescribable torture, and to a disease known as _trichinosis_, of which it has been estimated more than 50 per cent. of those attacked by it die. The symptoms of trichinosis commence with loss of appet.i.te, vomiting, and diarrha, succeeded after a few days by great fever--resembling, according to Dr Aitken, that of typhoid or typhus. As might be expected the pains in the limbs are extreme. Boils and dropsical swellings are not unusual concomitants of the malady.

Hitherto this frightful disease has been mostly confined to Germany, where there have been several outbreaks of it since its discovery in 1860 by Dr Zencker. Feidler says that only free _trichinae_ are killed by a temperature of 155 F.; and that when they are in their cysts a greater heat may be necessary. From what has been said the importance of efficient cooking must become manifest. There must always be risk in underdone pork, whether boiled or roasted. In the pig, the trichina, if present, may always be found in the muscles of the eye. In Germany the makers of pork sausages are now said to have these muscles subjected to a microscopic examination previous to using the meat, which, of course, is rejected if the examination has been unfavorable.

The trichinae, if present in the flesh of pork, may be seen as small round specks by the naked eye, the surrounding flesh itself being rather darker than usual owing to the inflammation set up in it. All doubt, however, on this point may be removed by having recourse to the microscope. Dr Parkes says a power of 50 to 100 diameters is sufficient, and that "the best plan is to take a thin slice of flesh, put it into liquor pota.s.sae (1 part to 8 of water), and let it stand for a few minutes till the muscle becomes clear; it must not be left too long, otherwise the trichinae will be destroyed. The white specks come out clearly and the worm will be seen coiled up. If the capsule is too dense to allow the worm to be seen, a drop or two of weak hydrochloric acid should be added. If the meat be very fat a little ether or benzine may be put on it in the first place."

_Legislation relative to meat inspection and seizure._--The law recognising the importance of the supply of pure and wholesome meat gives considerable powers to the different sanitary officers who are appointed to inspect it. See FOOD, INSPECTION OF.

=MEAT, AUSTRALIAN.= See MEAT PRESERVING.

=MEAT BISCUITS.= _Prep._ 1. The flour is mixed up with a rich fluid extract of meat, and the dough is cut into pieces and baked in the usual manner.

2. Wheaten flour (or preferably the whole meal), 3 parts; fresh lean beef or other flesh (minced and pulped), 2 parts; thoroughly incorporate the two by hand-kneading or machinery, and bake the pieces in a moderately heated oven. Both the above are very nutritious; the last more especially so. 1 oz. makes a pint of good soup.