The Influence of heredity and contagion on the propagation of tuberculosis : and the prevention of injurious effects from consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous animals / by A. Lydtin, G. Fleming, and Van Hertsen.

  • Lydtin, A.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Influence of heredity and contagion on the propagation of tuberculosis : and the prevention of injurious effects from consumption of the flesh and milk of tuberculous animals / by A. Lydtin, G. Fleming, and Van Hertsen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    In those portions of the work which appeared at a later period, mention is made of vegetations (tubercular neoplasms) of the viscera, and particularly of the lungs ; and with regard to the last- named organs, whether the air blown into them did or did not penetrate these vegetations, also determined whether the flesh of the animal should or should not be allowed for food. Hai Gaon, who died in 1038, states that the small vegetations {Kandi) are vesicular, and the larger ones {Tinari) are like stones (cretified phthisical nodosities). The early Christians had, up to the third century, maintained without modification the laws of Moses with regard to food. At a later period, when the Jew-Christians, as they were called, had disappeared, these grand laws were not so scrupulously- observed ; nevertheless, the bishops still sat in their respective dioceses every year as judges of morality, and conformably with the prescriptions of the Old Testament, they inquired whether the flesh or blood of hunted or torn animals had been consumed as food. Schmidt mentions the morality jurisdiction assemblies, in his “ History of the Germans.” * When panzootic diseases (Cattle Plague and Anthrax) mani- fested themselves in the course of the ninth century, the Franks had published to them the laws of the Church, which interdicted the consumption of the flesh of diseased animals, and, among others, that of cattle and pigs affected with Leprosy—a term which, at that time, was synonymous with Tuberculosis and Cysticercus Cellulosus. The continuation of the Roman manners and customs which preceded the Christian civilisation, may have been partly the cause of the retention of the alimentary laws. At Rome, as is well known, the superintendence of the sale of food was entrusted to four market inspectors called sediles, who, among others, had the power to order all bad or putrid flesh to be thrown into the Tiber. In Italy, France, and Spain, as well as in South Germany and in the region of the Danube, where Roman civilisation and manners were introduced, we also find the institution of a more or less severe surveillance of the trade in meat. It is mentioned, • Part i., p. 582.