poisons now under review, before they can take effect. At least unequivocal facts have been published which show, that the fluids and solids, as well as the emanations of animals infected and even killed by glanders or the pustule maligne, may be often handled and breathed with impunity. Such is the result of a careful inquiry made under the direction of the Parisian Board of Health into the nuisance occasioned by the great Nackery of Montfaucon.[1] Parent-Duchatelet, the author of an elaborate report on the subject, considers it clearly established that neither the workmen nor the horses connected with the establishment, nor the tanners who are supplied with hides from it, have ever presented a single instance of disease referrible to the operation of diseased animal matter. Yet upwards of twelve thousand horses are annually flayed there, and among these it is calculated that at least three thousand six hundred are affected with carbuncle, glanders, or farcy.[2] Of Animal Matter rendered Poisonous by common Putrefaction.
The second mode in which animal matters, naturally wholesome or harmless, may acquire the properties of irritant poisons, is by their undergoing ordinary putrefaction.
The tendency of putrefaction to impart deleterious qualities to animal matters originally wholesome has been long known, and is quite unequivocal. To those who are not accustomed to the use of tainted meat, the mere commencement of decay is sufficient to render meat insupportable and noxious. Game, only decayed enough to please the palate of the epicure, has caused severe cholera in persons not accustomed to eat it in that state. The power of habit, however, in reconciling the stomach to the digestion of decayed meat is inconceivable. Some epicures in civilized countries prefer a slight taint even in their beef and mutton; and there are tribes of savages still farther advanced in the cultivation of this department of gastronomy, who eat with impunity rancid oil, putrid blubber, and stinking offal. How far putrefaction may be allowed to advance without overpowering the preservative tendency of habit, it is not easy to tell. But with the present habits of this and other civilized nations, the limit appears very confined.
- ↑ I have taken the liberty of applying this term to an establishment unique perhaps in the history of the world. The Voirie et Chantier d"Ecarrissage of Montfaucon, which has existed close to the walls of Paris for several centuries, is an enclosure of many acres, where the contents of the necessaries of the city are collected in enormous pits, and where horses, dogs, and cats are flayed to the amount of forty or fifty thousand annually. The fat is melted for blow-pipe lamps; the bones are in a great measure burnt on the premises for fuel; the intestines are made into coarse gut for machinery; the flesh, blood, and garbage are heaped to putrefy for manure; and in summer a bed of compost is spread to breed maggots for feeding poultry. There is no drain. Description cannot convey an idea of the stench. The committee of the Board of Health, appointed to make inquiries into the best mode of abating the nuisance, in vain attempted to penetrate into the place. Yet the workmen and their families are stout, healthy, and long lived.
- ↑ Des Chantiers d'Ecarrissage. Annales d'Hyg. Publ. et de Méd. Lég. viii. 139. Sur l'enfouissement des Animaux morts de maladies contagieuses. Ibid. ix. 109.
