structures attached, the substance should be rejected. If the meat, especially pork, present what is called a measly appearance, or, as it is sometimes commonly described, "a pepper and salted look," in lines or sections, it should be rejected. If it presents the appearance of anything living in its structure it should be rejected.

The greatest care should be taken that all foods, whether animal or vegetable, be thoroughly clean before they go through the process of cooking if they are going to be eaten cooked; still greater care should be taken with those articles of food of a vegetable kind, such as celery, radishes, onions, and the various kinds of fruits, which are going to be eaten uncooked. With children unclean fruits are a constant cause of disease, particularly of that parasitic disease caused by the ascaris vermicularis, or threadworin. I believe, also, that the large round worm ascaris lumbricoides is often introduced by fruit.

When the intestinal parts of animals are being used as food, as in the case of tripe, too much care cannot be taken in regard to cleanliness. Such foods are very doubtful altogether, but if. they are to be utilized it should be with more than ordinary preventive care. The same rule applies to the liver, a structure which is an easy channel, as food, for the propagation of disease among those who subsist upon it.

In regard to every kind of animal or vegetable food that may be a means of conveying parasitic forms into the body, there is another rule which should be universally adopted, and that is, to have such food thoroughly and completely cooked. No animal food ought to be eaten that has not been subjected to the temperature of boiling water, that is to say, 212° Fahr. It should be subjected to this temperature through the whole of its structure, whether it be boiled or roasted. It is probable that all the parasitic organic forms are destroyed at this temperature of 212°, and the actual fact of complete boiling is preventive of itself. But roasting when effectually carried out is a still better preventive.

Preserved meat, even when the preservation from decomposition is perfect, is not a sufficient protection against the introduction of parasites, and indeed the parasite of the disease trichinosis has been more frequently distributed through preserved hams and such kinds of food than by any other means.

Pre

served foods, as well as fresh, require, therefore, to be kept under observation for the sake of prevention of disease.

Foods, vegetable or animal, in a state of decomposition ought to be rigorously excluded. The idea that some foods can be taken when they are what is called "high," and when they are charged actually with low forms of animal life, is a fallacy as uncleanly as it is dangerous. Such food, high game, high venison, is altogether out of place at a table surrounded by those who wish to be healthy.

For the prevention of those diseases of the cutaneous surface which spring from parasitic forms, such as scabies, two rules are necessary. The first of these is to prevent contact of the healthy with the unhealthy. The second is to maintain perfect cleanliness of body. These rules extend to the prevention of all the living animal forms which move upon the surface of the body, or which burrow under the surface.

For the prevention of the diseases which spring from the low forms of parasites, such as ring-worm and scald-head, three rules, as suggested already in general terms, are required. The first rule is to prevent contact of the healthy with the affected, a rule which should be rigorously carried out in nurseries and schoolrooms whenever any cases of the affections appear. The second rule is to maintain the general health of the young in whom these diseases are most common, and who become more than ordinarily liable to them when, from exposure to close and bad air, indifferent diet, or overwork mental or physical, the vital powers are deteriorated. The third rule is to maintain perfect cleanliness of the body.

II.

LOCAL AUTHORITATIVE RULES FOR PREVENTION.

Local authorities have at command powers which should enable them to unite their authority with that of personal care for the prevention of the parasitic diseases. These, in fact, are just the diseases which a local authority can control.

In every locality local authority ought to have an inspector of animal food, whose duty it should be to see that no part of a carcass of an animal should enter the market if it present any evidence of being tainted with disease.

This is a practical fact which has been known to the Jewish people for ages past, and has been acted upon by them with the utmost benefit to the health of their community.

In the Jewish community there is a certain number of men set apart to act as inspectors of animal food. They attend at the slaughter-houses, and after an animal is slain and dressed they submit it to inspection; then, unless they put upon it their sign that it is free of disease, which certainly excludes all parasitic disease, it is not permitted to enter a Jewish family. It enters into the families out of the Jewish community, so that we, who are not Jews, actually accept into our bodies food which the Jews have rejected as diseased food.

It may be true that the Jewish inspectors are not skilled pathologists; it may be that they sometimes make mistakes, condemning as unfit for food what is only seemingly unfit; but when they err it is on the safe side, and to what extent they reject food which other members of the community accept is shown by comparing a statement of the number of animals slaughtered for the Jewish community in the London districts, with the numbers that were free from disease and diseased. The facts, collected by Mr. H. Harris, Secretary to the Jewish Ecclesiastical Board, have been supplied to me by Mr. D. Tallerman.

Animals inspected in London by the Jewish inspectors yielded the following returns:

These figures, which refer to animals slaughtered at Deptford and Whitechapel alone, are of themselves sufficient to show that a considerable amount of diseased animal food is sold to, and consumed by, the British community outside the Jewish pale. The returns include animals rejected for pleuro-pneumonia and some other diseases of the lung. But I have found, by conversation with the Jewish inspectors, that in a very large number of instances the obvious and commonly known forms of parasitic disease, in animals killed for human food, are those which they detect, and for which they exclude such food from the market.

The rule, therefore, I suggest is one founded on the Jewish system. The rule is that so long as the consumption of animal food continues the local authorities should provide a well-trained inspector, whose duty it should be to see that every animal carcass entering the market for human food is free of disease.

The labors of such an official should, I think, extend also, in a properly constituted place, to the public fruit and vegetable markets, so that no articles of food should be exposed there for sale except when properly cleansed from parasitic forms of life and other evidences of uncleanliness.

To prevent the occurrence of parasitic diseases affecting the skin, it is incumbent on each local authority to supply to the people, by means of public baths, every possible facility for cleanliness by ablution. In towns this is recognized partially. In villages it is unrecognized practically. It ought to be recognized universally.

CHAPTER V.

PREVENTIONS OF ZYMOTIC DISEASES.

Ar first sight it would appear to be an incredible task to suppress the great class of diseases which come under the head of diseases of zymotic origin; and yet it is true that these diseases are, of all those of natural origin, the most distinctly preventable. For this reason they are sometimes specially called the preventable affections.

In applying the preventable measures necessary for this task we may, fortunately, lay aside all reference to the controverted points relating to the nature and origin of the affections. We have only to remember and keep in mind three admitted facts: (1) That the diseases are communicable from an affected person to an unaffected who is susceptible. (2) That the virus or infecting matter, whether it be living or dead, is particular, and transmissible for short distances, from the affected to the unaffected, by the air, by water or watery fluids, and by attachment to solid substances, as clothing or materials of the house. (3) That a person having been subjected once to these diseases is, as a general rule, protected for a certain time from their recurrence.

In the work of preventing the zymotic diseases all the agencies under command are required. There must be personal endeavor, there must be local authoritative endeavor, there must be central authoritative endeavor all acting in harmony together.

I.

PERSONAL RULES FOR PREVENTION.

Removal of Contagious Material. House Drainage.

The first personal rule for prevention is to take every precaution not to let susceptible people, and especially the susceptible young, be exposed to the contagion of the zymotic diseases. Thus