Good Health | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 20, 1879

Good Health.

Pork;

OR THE DANGERS OF PORK EATING EXPOSED.

(Continued.)

A DEAD HOG EXAMINED.

2. Do you imagine that the repulsiveness of this loathsome creature is only on the outside? that within, everything is pure and wholesome? Vain delusion. Sickening, disgusting, as is the exterior, it is, in comparison with what it covers, a fair cloak to hide a mass of disease and rottenness which grows more superlatively filthy as we penetrate deeper and deeper beneath the skin.

WHAT IS LARD?

Just under the foul and putrid skin we find a mass of fat from two to six inches in thickness, covering a large portion of the body. Now what is this? Lard, says one, animal oil; an excellent thing for consumptives; a very necessary kind of food in cold weather. Lard, animal oil, very truly; and, we will add, as synonyms, disease, scrofula, torpid liver, erysipelas!

Where did all that fat come from? or how happened it to be heaped up around that poor hog so prodigiously? Surely, it is not natural; for fat is only deposited in large quantities for the purpose of keeping the body warm in winter. This fat is much more than is necessary for such a purpose, and is much greater in amount than ever exists upon the animal in a state of nature. It is evidently the result of disease. So gross have been the habits of the animal, so great has been the foulness of its body, that its excretory organs—its liver, lungs, kidneys, skin, and intestines, have been entirely unable to carry away all the impurities which the animal has been all its life accumulating. And even the extensive system of sewerage, with its constant stream, which we have already described, was insufficient to the task of purging so vile a body of the scrofula which abounded in every organ, and saturated every tissue. Consequently, this great flood of disease, which made the blood a black, turbid current, was crowded out of the veins and arteries into the tissues, and there accumulated as fat! Delectable morsel, a slice of fat pork, is n't it? Concentrated, consolidated, scrofula, filth!

Then the fatter a hog, the more diseased he is? Certainly. A few months ago, there were on exhibition at the great cattle show in England a couple of hogs which had been stuffed with oil-cake until they were the greatest monsters of obesity ever exhibited. Of course, they took the first premium; and if a premium had been awarded for those animals capable of producing the most disease, it is quite probable that they would have headed the list still.

Lard, then, obtained from the flesh of the hog by heating, is nothing more than extract of disease! the essence of putridity and scrofula! Who that knows its character will dare to defile himself with this "broth of abominable things"?

DISGUSTING DEVELOPMENTS.

Now let us take a little deeper glance, prepared to find disease and corruption more abundant the deeper we go. Observe the glands which lie about the neck. Instead of being of their ordinary size, and composed of ordinary gland structure, we find enlarged masses of scrofulous disease. Perhaps tuberculous degeneration has already taken place. If so, the soft, cheesy, infectious mass is ready to sow broadcast the seeds of consumption and premature death. For, according to some excellent medical authorities, tuberculous disease is capable of communication by means of tubercles. If the animal is of sufficient age, the further process of ulceration will have occurred.

Now take a deeper look still, and examine the lungs of this much-prized animal. If he is more than a few months old, you will be certain to find large numbers of scrofulous tubercles if you make a careful examination. If he is much more than a year of age, you will more than likely as not find a portion of the lung completely consolidated. Yet all of this filthy, diseased mass is cooked as a delicious morsel, is served up to satisfy fastidious tastes. If the animal had escaped the butcher's knife a few years, he would have died of tuberculous consumption.

But what kind of a liver would you expect such an animal to have? Is not excessive fatness one of the surest evidences of a diseased and inactive liver? Infallible. Then a fat hog must have a dreadful diseased bile manufactory. Make a cut into its substance. In ninety-five cases out of a hundred, you will find it filled with abscesses. In a larger percentage still will be found the same scrofulous deposits which seem to infest every organ, every tissue, and every structure of the animal. Yet these same rotten, diseased, scrofulous livers are eaten and relished by thousands of people who cannot express their contempt for the Frenchman who eats a horse, or Chinaman who dines upon fricasseed puppy.

Now just glance at the remaining contents of the abdomen. In every part you notice evidences, unmistakable, of scrofula, fatty degeneration, and tuberculous accumulations.

WHERE SCROFULA COMES FROM.

The word Scrofula is derived from the Latin scrofa, which means, a sow. The ancient Romans evidently believed that scrofula originated with the hog, and hence they attached the name of the beast to the disease. Saying that a man has scrofula, then, is equivalent to saying that he has the hog disease. After we have seen that the hog is the very embodiment of scrofula, is filled with it, literally overflowing with it, in fact, since he requires sewers to carry it off sufficiently to preserve his own life—after viewing this, can any one doubt the accuracy of the conclusion of the Romans who named the disease?

ORIGIN OF THE TAPE WORM.

We shall not attempt to trace the history of this horrid animal, which frequently attains the length of thirty to fifty feet in the intestines of human beings, only so far as concerns its introduction into the human system.

With this end in view, let us glance again at that ulcerated liver. Upon closer inspection, it will be no uncommon thing if we discover numberless little sacs, or cysts, about the size of a hemp seed. These do not present a very formidable appearance, certainly; but as soon as they are taken into the stomach by eating the flesh containing them, the gastric juice dissolves off the membranous sac and liberates a minute animal which had been lurking there for months, perhaps, awaiting this very opportunity. This creature, although quite minute, is furnished with a head and four suckers. With the latter it attaches itself firmly to the side of the stomach, and begins to grow. In a short time it produces an addition to its body which is attached like a joint behind. Soon a duplicate of this is produced, and then another and another, until a body three or four rods in length is formed.

The poor victim who is forced to entertain this unwelcome guest suffers untold agonies, and finally dies if he cannot succeed in dislodging the parasite.

The germs of these dreadful animals are found not only in the liver, but in the other organs as well. Pork containing them is said to be measly. Sometimes it is discovered; but that such is by no means always the case is evidenced by the fact that tapeworm is every year becoming more and more frequent in this country. It has long been common in Germany.

(To be Continued.)