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.