A Diseased Ham

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 13, 1865

Two gentlemen not long since entered a respectable meat shop in this city, in quest of "steak." One called for some from a fine looking piece of pork lying on the counter. It was accordingly cut, when his friend concluded to have some of the same. The obliging shopman proceeded to serve his customer, when, to the disgust of all, and particularly the pork-eaters, the first incision of the knife laid open a concealed tumor, from which flowed about a gill of thick, creamy-looking matter, giving off an odor of the most terribly offensive putridity that can well be imagined. The tumor was entirely concealed in the ham, and the flesh looked perfectly fair to within a very short distance of it—in fact had been cut, and somebody had probably eaten the steak almost to it, and it is not altogether improbable that some M. D. has had a job before now as the result of it. That the hog is, among the animals used for food, the most liable to disease, is a fact long since established. Suffice it to say there were two families in the city who didn't have pork-steak for breakfast the next morning.—Detroit Tribune.