Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 14, 1889

Health and Temperance.

DANGER IN BEEF.

WE pointed out recently the new danger to health that had arisen from the habit of dealers in coffee, pepper, butter, cheese, lard, and other largely consumed foods, of adulterating the adulterants they admit using, and which were comparatively harmless. Another and still graver peril threatens our people, and one that can only be guarded against by the use of the most painstaking precautions. This constant menace to human life has been formulated by Dr. Huidekoper, chief of the veterinary school of the University of Pennsylvania, in the statement that nearly one-half of the deaths from consumption in this country are the direct result of eating tuberculous beef.

While it is not asserted that every person eating the flesh or drinking the milk of tuberculous animals becomes diseased, it is true that if the patient happens to be susceptible to a certain class of ailments, either through inheritance or any other predisposing cause, the microbe finds all the conditions necessary for its multiplication and activity. So great an authority as Dr. Austin Flint has said: "It is probable that a person with an inherited tendency to consumption would never develop the disease if he could be absolutely protected against infection with the 'tubercle bacillus;' but once infected, the bacteria multiply and produce the characteristic signs and symptoms."—Frank Leslie's.