Report of the Sanitary Committee of the Commissioners of Sewers of the City of London, together with a report of the Medical Officer of Health on the objections raised by the Butchers' Trade Society to the bye-laws proposed for the regulation of slaughter-houses

by W. Sedgwick Saunders; City of London . Commissioners of Sewers. Sanitary Committee

Bye-law V.

That each Slaughter-house be separated from any adjoining Slaughter-house in a different occupation by a brick wall, of at least nine inches in thickness, extending from the ground to the roof, so as effectually to shut off all atmospheric communication between it and the adjacent Slaughter-house.

Objections.

The Butchers object to the brick side walls between adjoining Slaughter-houses being more than six or seven feet high, above which they would have placed “the largest possible openings, fitted with louvre boards.” They are of opinion “that the best construction in the case of a row of Slaughter-houses would be, that there should exist means of thorough ventilation from end to end and side to side.”

Reply.

This involves the most important change in the reconstruction of the Slaughter-houses, and in order to explain my views fully upon the matter, and avoid paraphrasing the same ideas, I must reiterate, almost “ipsissima verba” the observations contained in my Report upon the subject presented to you in June last, with such omissions or alterations more recent information has enabled me to obtain.

I may, however, premise by stating that the present divisional walls between the several Slaughter-houses are composed of wet, partially rotten, and rugged, brickwork below, and rough, imperfect, and defective, wooden partitions above, the whole of which are supersaturated with organic animal matters, grease, and dirt.

The faulty construction of these Slaughter-houses was clearly brought before the notice of the Select Committee of the House of Commons in the evidence given by Sir J. Ogilvy and others, as recently as 1873, but the only action taken by Parliament to remedy the same in the Slaughter-house Act of 1874 (which was based mainly upon the recommendations of the said Committee) is comprised in Section 4, which directs that “The Local Authority may from time to time make, alter, and repeal Bye-laws for regulating the conduct of any business specified in this Act, which is for the time being lawfully carried on within their jurisdiction, and the structure of the premises on which such business is being carried on,” &c. And in order to protect the trade from arbitrary action on the part of any local authority, it is further enacted that “any Bye-law made in pursuance of this section, and any alteration made therein, and any repeal of a Bye-law, shall not be of any validity until it has been confirmed by the Local Government Board.”

It is quite clear, therefore, that you are acting strictly within your legal rights in calling upon the Butchers to put their houses in order.

Your visit to Aldgate must have convinced you that the premises of these Slaughter-houses generally are too small for the enormous amount of business done in them, and as, owing to the natural increment of the population, this evil must ever be augmenting, it becomes a serious question to determine whether a strong remonstrance should not be addressed by the Commissioners of Sewers to Her Majesty’s Government, or failing this to Parliament, against the continuance of the smaller of these places, or by insisting that slaughtering should only be carried on in houses of such dimensions as would ensure perfect ventilation, and provide the means of carrying on the process with efficiency. In order to perfect your powers, and establish a wholesome check upon the slaughterers, a short Act might be obtained, giving the Commissioners of Sewers authority to issue fresh licences, without which no Slaughter-houses should be allowed to exist. The present licences were issued in 1848, and have not been revised since that time, whereas outside the City they are (as they ought to be) renewed yearly.

In the exercise of this important jurisdiction, the Metropolitan Board of Works have actually abolished 284 Slaughter-houses during the year 1875, having licensed 1,068 Slaughter-houses during the same period.

Respecting the technical means to be adopted to remedy the admitted defects of these Slaughter-houses, your Engineer will advise you; but, without trenching upon the ground of that officer, it must, I think, be patent that nothing short of an entire reconstruction of the side walls and roofs of all of them will satisfy the requirements of scientific sanitation, or ensure that complete isolation of each house, which is the one essential requisite for carrying on the business of slaughtering with due regard to the public health. It is therefore a sine qua non that there should be a solid brick partition or side wall between each Slaughter-house, and that the only opening allowed therein should be for a door (where required), on the ground level, and that this wall should extend from the floor to the highest point of the roof. An exception to this may be made in those places in which an open air passage of 4 or 5 ft. wide exists between the side walls of two Slaughter-houses, for here it might be admissible to supplement other means of ventilation and light by glazed sashes, which, however, must be so made as to be readily closed, should, by any accidental circumstance or oversight, a beast affected with any contagious disease be found in the adjoining house.

Second only in importance to the closure of these side openings, is the provision that the internal facing of all the walls in the Slaughter-house should be of a non-absorbing nature, and I am still of the opinion, which I ventured to urge unsuccessfully when the Bye-laws were framed in November, 1874, viz., that the height mentioned in [Bye-law VI.] is insufficient for the purpose, and that the whole wall-surface should be coated with a “hard, smooth, and impervious material,” such as is now used in the wards of our best Metropolitan hospitals. When this is done, the disgusting and blood-stained appearance, seen on the walls of these Slaughter-houses on your recent visit, will be impossible, and one fertile source of disease averted.

I entertain a strong objection to the partitions in any part of the Slaughter-house, Pound, or Lair, being constructed of wood, for the reason that this material becomes rapidly sodden by the constant presence of hot moist air, in which state it must inevitably absorb noxious and other vapours, and soon become saturated with albuminoid organic matter, and afford a ready nidus for the development and propagation of any disease germs which may be floating in the air.

The Butchers deny the existence of unpleasant odours in Slaughter-houses; but whilst freely admitting this to be a matter in which the senses of ordinary men may be differently affected to those of persons constantly living in and enjoying an atmosphere, however nauseous, I must insist that the air within a Slaughter-house can never be wholesome so long as the disgusting practice of opening the paunches of hot, reeking animals, directly after they are knocked down, is allowed to continue.

From the nature of the food eaten by ruminants, and during its disintegration and assimilation, enormous quantities of stinking volatile gases are formed, and the sudden disengaging of these when the intestines are ripped up and emptied, before being handed over to the tripe-dresser, must always fill the surrounding air with what common mortals would consider vile and poisonous smells.

You may remember I urged you to make a Bye-law prohibiting this custom, and I regret the more it was overruled in Committee, since the only excuse offered for its continuance was the very inadequate plea that the guts of a large animal were too heavy and bulky to be removed without being first deprived of their contents.

Mr. Simon, C.B., F.R.S., &c., &c., my talented predecessor, insisted in the Blue Book before referred to, that “an atmosphere which smells of organic decomposition, is an unwholesome atmosphere; that it at least favours the spread, perhaps also what may virtually be considered the production, of morbid infections.”

It has been urged that the closure of the present louvres and other apertures in the side walls will restrict the necessary ventilation; I am, however, of a contrary opinion, believing that it can be demonstrated by the employment of an anemometer; that in proportion to the exclusion of disturbing currents of air from lateral sources, will be an increase in the velocity by which the fresh incoming supply will travel through the narrow passage from front to back of the premises, and that a readier displacement of vitiated air will result. If this should prove insufficient, a constant upward direction of ventilation can be accomplished by well-known mechanical contrivances in the roof of each house.

Without reiterating the reasons which have led me to insist upon this isolation of each Slaughter-house, I will only advert to the very evident facility given for one Slaughter-house to infect its neighbour should these side openings be allowed to continue, an objection which would apply with fatal force should cattle suffering from contagious disease be imported by carelessness or design into any one of them.

It being a well-ascertained fact that myriads of germs or disease-spreading organisms may be given off in the cutaneous exhalations, the excreta, and, possibly, the very breath of infected animals, it is no exaggeration to affirm that one such beast might decimate its neighbourhood, affecting alike the living cattle in the Pounds and Lairs waiting for slaughter, and the dead meat hanging up to cool in the Slaughter-house before it was carried away by the retail butchers. In the latter case, the well-known power of warm fat in rapidly absorbing all kinds of odours, good and bad, would render every precaution to prevent the contamination of the meat already killed inoperative.

It is no argument against these measures to urge that their necessity has not yet been recognised by the unlearned, or to assert that no practical difficulty has arisen in the direction just mentioned, for it must be remembered that the great aim of all modern Sanitary legislation is to discover disease in its germinal condition, and apply such preventive agents as will combat the extension of the mischief when once discovered.

Interested persons have asserted that no injury to health has been proved to result from the existence of Slaughter-houses, even in densely populated and confined situations, but my own experience, and that of every practical physician, leads to an opposite opinion; in support of which I may recall the circumstance of my having recently reported to you an outbreak of scarlet fever in the vicinity of the Slaughter-houses in Aldgate, and again as lately as 14th March last a case of typhoid fever in Somerset Street, at the back of the Slaughter-houses, in a house in immediate connexion with the drains of the Slaughter-houses and the “blood house” adjoining. Moreover, it is a truism, established by recent researches in vital statistics, that slaughterers and butchers should be regarded as an unhealthy class of men, since they present a much higher rate of mortality than is observed in other trades.

It is now established as an actuarial fact,[3] that this unhealthfulness of calling applies to all trades in connection with animal food, and this has been supposed to depend, in the case of butchers and slaughterers,—Firstly, from their constantly inhaling an atmosphere impregnated with animal matter;—Secondly, from their exposure to sudden alternations of temperature and the vicissitudes of weather; and,—Thirdly, from the large amount of animal food they are known to eat. It has also been stated with much force that they are necessarily exposed, more than other persons, to fevers and zymotic diseases, from their constantly breathing an atmosphere charged with decomposing, and often putrescent, animal matter.

Respecting the separation of the Pounds from the Slaughter-houses, I still retain a strong conviction that such is both necessary and expedient, although I am not insensible of the difficulty of carrying it out in some few of the Slaughter-houses, whose cramped dimensions render this and other requisite accommodation well nigh impracticable. In these cases the owners should be compensated, and the places closed.

Before a clear idea can be entertained of the possible and impossible improvements in these Slaughter-houses, I strongly recommend that a ground plan[4] be prepared of the whole block in High Street, showing to scale the exact size of each Shop, Lair, Slaughter-house, and out-building, with so much of the surrounding property as will provide a back way into the Slaughter-houses upon a give-and-take line as between immediate neighbours; should the owners find it their interest to combine for such purpose.

By means of this plan it may be seen how far it may be practicable to reconstruct the whole of these places upon one agreed basis, and prevent, inter alia, the objectionable practice of driving the cattle across the public footways into the Slaughter-houses, so much complained of.