While it is true that tuberculosis is more frequently contracted through the use of tuberculous milk than from tuberculous meat, the latter source of infection cannot be ignored. Numerous cases of tuberculosis have been reported where the infection could be directly traced to the flesh of tuberculous animals.
Dr. E. C. Shroeder, of the Bureau of Animal Industry of the United States Department of Agriculture, says: "That ten per cent of the dairy cattle in the United States are affected with tuberculosis impresses me as a very conservative estimate. In New York State, about thirty-three per cent of all cattle tested were found to be tuberculous." Dr. Julius Rosenberg, of New York City, writes: "Cattle tuberculosis is rapidly increasing. There is scarcely a dairy herd without a number of infected animals. It is an ever growing menace. The health department of Boston estimates the percentage of tuberculous animals producing the city's milk supply to be from twenty to twenty-five per cent. Conservative estimate places the number of cows dying yearly from tuberculosis at one million, were they permitted to die a natural death; but they are killed before drawing the last gasp, and served as prime beef." In one year in the United States, the entire carcasses of thirty-five thousand one hundred three cattle were condemned because of generalized tuberculosis. In the same year, a portion of the carcass of ninety-nine thousand seven hundred thirty-nine more were rejected because of local tuberculosis.
Professor Ravenal, of the University of Wisconsin, says that of the thirty-five million hogs killed for food annually in the United States, seven million are found to be infected with tuberculosis. Some one has said that meat would sell for a dollar a pound if all the diseased meat were eliminated.
Ulcer of the stomach is one of our most common diseases. Leading surgeons have shown that it is ten times as frequent as was formerly supposed. It is clearly of dietetic origin, and is usually associated with too high consumption of protein, and especially of meat. Starches, sugars, and fats are not digested in the stomach, and require no acid. Proteins, on the other hand, are digested within the stomach, and require for their digestion a high percentage of hydrochloric acid. The excessive production of acid within the stomach, stimulated by too much protein, is probably the chief cause of the formation of ulcers. In 1908, Dr. Fenton B. Turck, of Chicago, said before the American Medical Association: "Ulcer of the stomach is not found in those countries where the inhabitants eat rice. It is evidently a meat eater's disease. The zone of ulcer is in the meat eater's zone."
Cancer is a disease of modern civilization. It is the one major unsolved problem in the field of medical science to-day. From the Journal of the American Medical Association of June 14, 1913, we quote: "That cancer has increased in recent years is perhaps a commonplace, but the extent of the increase is not generally realized. Under existing conditions, one in seven women and one in eleven men die of cancer." In the Medical Record, issue of May 15, 1915, Dr. W. G. Mayo is quoted as saying: "Cancer of the stomach forms nearly one third of all cancers of the human body.... Is it not possible that there is something in the habits of civilized man, in the cooking or other preparation of his food, which acts to produce the precancerous condition?... Within the last one hundred years, four times as much meat is taken as before that time. If flesh foods are not fully broken up, decomposition results, and active poisons are thrown into an organ not intended for their reception, and which has not had time to adapt itself to the new function."
Dr. L. Duncan Bulkley, senior physician to the New York Skin and Cancer Hospital, says on this point, "Analyzing the various data obtained, we find that cancer has increased in proportion to the consumption of four articles, meat, coffee, tea, and alcohol."
One is hardly up to date who does not present an abdominal scar caused by an offending appendix. At the fifteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography held in Washington, D. C., Dr. Henning contributed a paper dealing with "statistics upon the increase of appendicitis and its causes." He said: "A meat diet is of great influence in the development of appendicitis. This diet leads to constipation. In most instances, too long retention of intestinal contents in the cæcum causes slight inflammation in that region, the results of which are to weaken the appendix, and to render it nonresistant against later infection." When Dr. Lorenz, the celebrated Vienna surgeon, was in the United States, he called attention to the relatively greater prevalence of appendicitis in this country as compared with Europe, and attributed it to the greater consumption of cold storage meats here, which he said rendered Americans unduly septic, and especially prone to infection of the appendix. Nicholas Senn was told by the hospital surgeons in Africa that they had never seen a case of appendicitis in a vegetable-eating African.
7. Trichinæ and Tapeworms
"A story is told of two of the most noted of Germans,—Bismarck, the statesman, and Virchow, the scientist. The latter had severely criticized the former in his capacity as chancellor, and was challenged to fight a duel. The man of science was found by Bismarck's seconds in his laboratory, hard at work at experiments which had for their object the discovery of a means of destroying trichinæ, then making ravages among animals in Germany. 'Ah,' said the doctor, 'a challenge from Prince Bismarck, eh? Well, well, as I am the challenged party, I suppose I have the choice of weapons. Here they are.' He held up two large sausages, which appeared to be exactly alike. 'One of these sausages,' he said, 'is filled with trichinæ. It is deadly. The other is perfectly wholesome. Externally, they can't be told apart. Let his excellency do me the honor to choose whichever of these he wishes and eat it, and I will eat the other.' No duel was fought, and no one accused Virchow of cowardice."