p. 11 | Some Facts About Meat by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 14, 1906

Some Facts About Meat

By L. A. S.

L. A. S. (Concluded)

The unhealthfulness of the food products put on the market by the Chicago meat-packers depends not alone upon the diseased conditions of the animals received at their establishments. The testimony that has been set forth on this subject, bad as it is, does not tell all the tale of the dangers which threaten the consumer of such products. There remains to be considered the condition of the persons who handle and prepare the meat and other products for the market, and this is by no means an unimportant part of the subject. Even though the meat itself be in a healthy state when it comes into the hands of the packing-house employee, it by no means follows that it will be fit for food when it leaves the hands of employees who are themselves diseased. And here the fact confronts us that the unsanitary conditions in the packing establishments and in Packingtown where the employees live, invite disease, and that the latter are, to an unusual degree, victims of tuberculosis.

The following quotations on this subject are taken from an article in The World's Work by Dr. Caroline Hedger, a physician who visits and practises among Packingtown's inhabitants.

“No one yet knows how many cases of tuberculosis there are among the workers in the yards, for until now, no system of reporting cases of the plague has been used in Chicago. In 1902 the deaths in the twenty-ninth ward, which embraces this district, were twenty-eight per ten thousand, which is fifty-five per cent more than the average number per ten thousand for the whole city in the same year. One physician who has worked here for years, says Packingtown has more tuberculosis than any other city in the country. . . . As I write, I take from my desk the last thirty-three sheets giving the history of cases in my office on which I have been working, and I find that eleven of the cases are of tuberculosis. Conversation with the workers makes me believe that tuberculosis is an ever-present menace, and that it is feared by them.”

Of general conditions in Packingtown, Dr. Hedger says:—

“The houses in Packingtown are small and mean, the land is low, and often wet, four families on the average live in each house; there are four adults on the average to each bedroom, with some children thrown in for good measure. . . . The houses are so close together that in summer, with doors and windows open, and with a swarming population in each house, rest becomes a terrific problem. Flies buzz in the houses, fleas hop in the dirty yards, babies cry fretfully in the heat, dogs whine and bark, and the tenement is transformed into a sleep-destroying monster.

“The workers shut out of their houses much of the air that might save their lives, partly through ignorance, partly, in cold weather, to save fuel bills. Many of the people are compelled to keep boarders to help with the rent or the payments on the house, and this adds to the fearful overcrowding and discomfort.”

“Every possible opportunity is given for the men of Packingtown to drink. Outside the stock-yards, on Ashland Avenue, are forty-five saloons in two blocks. . . . A drinker of alcohol stands the chance of infection by tuberculosis, as compared to a teetotaler, of three to one.

“In any infectious disease, such as tuberculosis, the resistance of the individual means much. Disease germs are less apt to attack a body the tissues of which are well nourished, healthy, and rested, than a body in a low condition of vitality. Thus the matter of food and drink becomes vital. So does ventilation. . . .

“Then there is Bubbly Branch on the west edge of the district. It is a stagnant branch of the Chicago River. The filth from the stock-yard's sewer pours into it. It is really a large open sewer itself. In summer, if you are detained on the bridge that spans it, your clothing will smell for hours. The scum of filth gets brown and dusty looking in hot weather. It will bear up cats and chickens. [And even this unspeakable filth, we are told, is utilized as a food product by the packers.]”

“The ‘dump,’ another menace to the workers’ health, is a great excavation made by a brick yard. Into this hole is dumped the city garbage from the residence wards. . . . One woman who has tuberculosis has a wall of garbage nearly four feet high marking off her tiny front yard. . . .”

“Given now a worker ill-nourished from improper food, poisoned by bad air in his house and in his neighborhood, and tempted to drink more alcohol than he ought, he is an almost ideal soil for tuberculosis. You have but to supply the germ. . . . In the stock-yards, too, they work under very good conditions for supplying tuberculosis germs. Sunlight kills the germs of tuberculosis. A vast number of the packing-house workers work by electric light. If a tubercular person chose to expectorate in those totally dark rooms, where scores of girls work, those germs could live almost indefinitely unless removed.” [And in these dark rooms, full of tubercular germs, the meat is handled, dragged about on the floor, and expectorated on by infected employees.]

“The air in some of the departments, especially in the canning department, is bad—sometimes so steamy that it is impossible to see through it, and this provides moisture to keep tuberculosis germs alive. . . . In the soap-mixing department of one firm which I visited, the dust was choking. . . . In the painting rooms, where girls paint the cans, the smell of turpentine is very strong. . . . This department is popularly credited with more tuberculosis than any other department where women work. One woman, in the last stages of consumption, was found sewing bags at home. These were for a special kind of export sausage. . . . In two weeks she was dead. . . .”

“It is revolting to think of the chances for infection of food in a situation like this.”

That disease and death must naturally follow the eating of such food is self-evident. Dr. H. L. E. Johnson, of Washington, trustee of the American Medical Association, declares that to sell such food is “worse than to fire a Gatling gun up the street. With the gun some people would escape, while with bad meat all are affected more or less.” Dr. Johnson is quoted by the Washington Post as saying:—

“The terrible dangers of preserved meats to the health of the system can not be exaggerated, neither can the despicable schemes resorted to by the packers in foisting off upon an unsuspecting public diseased meat, fish, and chickens.

“Puffed cans filled with meat which has fermented, are perforated, and filled with a solution of formalin, when the hole is soldered up, and they are put upon the market as food to be eaten by people.”

It is not generally known, but according

to Dr. Johnson it is a fact, that fish and oysters are sometimes kept in storage for years before being sold for food. “Right in this city,” he states, “a porter delivering oysters told me that the oysters had been in storage three years in this city, and that when they dried out a pint or two of preservaline was put into the kegs in which they were kept. The effect of such food on the human system,” this authority adds, “is such as to produce either acute indigestion or a catarrhal condition of the intestines, which goes on to a point where the appendix becomes affected. Various grades of appendicitis then result, such as catarrhal or recurrent, or a violent inflammation which results in perforation of the intestines and peritonitis, from which the patient dies.”

We have given only a small part of the testimony which might be produced regarding the obnoxious character of meat foods. The imagination of the reader can supply what we have omitted without danger of exaggerating the truth. The whole meat-packing business well illustrates the Scripture declaration, “The love of money is the root of all evil.” For money, men are willing to perpetrate any kind of outrage on their fellow men, and the health or even the lives of others does not weigh with these men against their financial profits.

The attitude of the heads of the meat trust at this time is interesting and instructive. In the face of the exposure that has been made of their nefarious methods of gain, these men, instead of being abashed or showing any disposition to regard the well-being of the people, boldly put forth every effort to prevent any effective action by Congress in the direction of providing a remedy. The air is filled with their vociferations about the damage that will be done to their business, or to the pocketbooks of some class or other, if Congress proceeds to provide an adequate system of inspection. That it is of any importance whatever to protect the public is apparently beyond their conception. And from the latest reports there are indications that their opposition tactics in Congress will prove successful, and that nothing effective will be done by that body to remedy the existing situation. In any case, there will be a constant tendency toward a return to former conditions.

It ought to be clear to all that the only safe course for the individual is to let meat and meat products severely alone, and compose his diet of other and better foods. The only effective remedy and adequate safeguard for an individual, will be that which he himself provides in the decision to turn wholly away from these nauseous products of the packing-house, and this, with the evidence of their character before him, ought not to be a difficult step. Certainly any one who, in the face of the exposure that has come in the meat-packing business, will continue to make use of such “foods,” will evince a reckless disregard of sanitary decency, and will have only himself to blame for the results that must follow.