Part 16

An interesting experiment which showed the increase of anaerobes or poison-forming germs in dead flesh, was that made with two chickens of equal size, one of which was drawn, and the other undrawn. Both were placed under the same conditions in a room the temperature of which was maintained at 70° Fahrenheit. Bacterial cultures were made at frequent intervals, with results as given in the following table, the figures showing the number of bacteria per gram of moist material.

No. 11 Drawn No. 12 Not Drawn Aerobes Anaerobes Aerobes Anaerobes

3 hrs after death 4,500 5,650 5,000 6,500 2d day 8,500 9,000 10,000 12,000 3d day 17,000 16,000 60,000 20,000

It must be remembered that these chickens were freshly killed, and that the anaerobes had no such opportunity to increase as in ordinary market beefs.

Specimens of several other kinds of meat were purchased in the market, and at once taken to the laboratory for study. Cultures were made immediately on reaching the laboratory, and again after the meat had been allowed to stand (covered) at room temperature for twenty hours. The following table shows the results of the bacterial counts:

BACTERIA PER GRAM (MOIST)

Immediately after purchase

Specimen Aerobes Anaerobes No. 13 Large sausage 560,000,000 420,000,000 No. 14 Small sausage 834,400,000 663,000,000 No. 15 Round steak 420,000,000 560,000,000 No. 16 Roast beef 252,000,000 560,000,000 No. 17 Smoked ham 47,320,000 43,120,000 No. 18 Hamburger steak 138,000,000 129,000,000 No. 19 Pork 635,600,000 126,040,000 No. 20 Porterhouse steak 31,920,000 30,800,000

After being kept at room temperature for twenty hours.

Specimen Aerobes Anaerobes

No. 13 Large sausage 770,000,000 490,000,000 No. 14 Small sausage 770,000,000 640,400,000 No. 15 Round steak 750,000,000 840,000,000 No. 16 Roast beef 728,000,000 750,000,000 No. 17 Smoked ham 616,000,000 750,000,000 No. 18 Hamburger steak 784,000,000 700,000,000 No. 19 Pork 952,000,000 1,036,000,000 No. 20 Porterhouse steak 336,000,000 700,000,000

These experiments were made in the winter time, when, because of the diminished amount of dust in the air, germs are less abundant. Even in the winter time, however, certain meat products simply swarm with germs. A specimen of raw liver examined in January was found to contain 269,800,000 bacteria per ounce or gram. Raw sausage contained 48,280,000 bacteria per ounce or gram.

“A food which introduces these deadly organisms, the anaerobes, at the rate of ten to twenty-five billions to the ounce, as do pork, beef and sausage, must certainly be classed as unclean,” said Dr. Kellogg, in summing up the report on his experiments. “When thousands are daily indulging themselves in this dietary, what wonder that Bright’s disease, enteritis, and other maladies due to germs and germ poisons are so rife and so rapidly increasing? It is quite as important to keep the inside of the body in a sweet, clean and wholesome condition as to maintain a wholesome state of the external portion of the body.”

CANCER AND MEAT EATING

That nothing could seem more definite than the connection between cancer and the practice of eating inferior meat, is the conclusion reached by Dr. G. Cook Adams, who made a series of statistical studies under the direction of the Chicago Board of Health. “There cannot be the slightest doubt,” says this expert, “that the great increase in cancer among the foreign born of Chicago over the prevalence of that disease in their native countries, is due to the increased consumption of animal foods, particularly those derived from diseased animals.” This conclusion substantiates the original deductions made by Dr. Adams from investigations carried on over a number of years in Australia and London.

Dr. Woods Hutchinson stated that the rise of any nation in civilization is invariably accompanied by an increased abundance in food supply; and the rise of these foreign born in Chicago in civilization substantiates Dr. Woods Hutchinson’s views. Receiving more wages than in their native homes, where their diet was simple, they are enabled to indulge in a meat diet denied them in Europe. The result is an increase in the death rate from cancer between the years 1856 and 1866 of 680%, while from 1866 to 1905 the increase was 232%.

In 1905 cancer was responsible for one in every twenty-three deaths, while in 1906 one death in every 21.8 was due to this horrible disease. The Italians and the Chinese were the only two of all the races represented in Chicago that do not show a far greater death rate from cancer than in their own homes. The Italians keep up the use of macaroni and spaghetti, while the Chinese adhere to their native diet of rice. The nations showing the higher mortality consume large quantities of canned, preserved, dried and pickled meats, sausages, etc. It was also shown that the bulk of the fresh meat prepared at the plant of a slaughtering company was stock condemned by official inspectors, and this was the meat eaten by the poor.

INVESTIGATIONS IN NEW YORK

Dr. W. H. Guilfoy, of the New York Health Department, recently published the results of investigations of the death rate among foreigners in New York, and showed that cancer, heart disease and chronic Bright’s disease have increased alarmingly in recent years, and his statistics show that foreigners of flesh eating nations reveal the highest rates for the three diseases mentioned, in marked contrast with nations that consume from 50 to 400% less meat per capita. The following list shows the exact comparison:

DEATHS PER 100,000 AMONG FLESH-EATING FOREIGNERS

Chronic Heart Bright’s Cancer. Disease. Disease.

Irish 166.6 381.2 410 German 151.9 231.5 212 English 140 207 209 Bohemian 246 237.4 255.7

DEATHS PER 100,000 AMONG NATIONALITIES NOTED FOR SMALL CONSUMPTION OF MEAT

Chronic Heart Bright’s Cancer. Disease. Disease.

Austro-Hungarian 151.5 190.7 131.2 Swedish 84.7 69.7 99.6 Polish 130 170 121 Italian 63.7 161 107.7

Another argument which the opponents of meat-eating bring forward, is based upon the fact that in eating flesh which contains blood, we consume a great deal of waste material and poisons from the body of the animal. When the blood flows from the heart outward to each organ of the body it is a life-stream containing life-giving oxygen and particles of fresh food material for the use of the tissues, but when it flows back it is freighted with the elements of disease and death, with poisonous substances which are the bi-products of organic activity, and which, if retained in the body for any length of time invariably cause disease. The rapidity with which the blood becomes impure and poisonous may be easily noted by winding a string about the finger, when the flesh will quickly turn a blue color. Animals die as men and women die, with their ailments within them, and if you eat of them you eat the products of their disease process. Tuberculosis is known to be one of the maladies sometimes transmitted by the use of flesh. Numerous epidemics of typhoid fever have been traced to the use of oysters.

THE PROTEID ARGUMENT

It had generally been assumed by physiologists that the great virtue of meat lay in the greater digestibility of its proteid matter. Recent experiment investigations, however, have shown that the vegetable proteids are as a rule not less digestible than those from animal sources. The vegetable proteids are often packed away and enveloped in cellulose or other material difficult of digestion, or are permeated with fats, as in some of the nuts; but modern methods of preparing grains for the market, and also the thorough cooking of them, remove this difficulty.