Swine products of the United States : message from the President of the United States, transmitting a report from the Secretary of State relative to the importation of the swine products of the United States, March 1, 1884 : referred to the Committee on agriculture and ordered to be printed.

  • United States. Department of State.
Date:
[1884]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Swine products of the United States : message from the President of the United States, transmitting a report from the Secretary of State relative to the importation of the swine products of the United States, March 1, 1884 : referred to the Committee on agriculture and ordered to be printed. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    To the President: In the President’s last annual message to the Congress he announced that in view of the action of certain foreign Governments prohibit] >g importation of the swine products of the United States, because of alleged danger to health from their use, he had deemed it so important to ascertain and promulgate the exact facts that he had designated a commission of experts to make a thorough investigation of the subject- The Commission so appointed has now submitted a report to the un- dersigned, which is herewith laid before the President, for transmission to Congress if in his judgment it be deemed advisable so to do. The report is thorough and impartial to a degree which cannot fail to commend it to public consideration here and abroad. It deals mainly with the two asserted causes of a diseased condition of the prepared food-products, namely, hog cholera, so called, and trichiniasis. As to the first, it is conclusively shown that the flesh of swine so diseased does not enter the market packed for human food, and it is moreover demonstrable that in no event is the disease communicable to human beings. As to trichiniasis in swine the report is less conclusive, because less, is certainly known of the manner in which the living trichinae or their germs are transmitted. The need of further investigations to deter- mine this point, on which alone can any practicable measure for the extirpation of the disease be based, is very clear. Admitting the fact that a percentage of the animals slaughtered (probably smaller than in the countries of Europe) are more or less infested with trichinee, the Commission points out that the processes and conditions of packing and the lapse of time between the slaughter of the animal and the con- sumption of the prepared flesh abroad, are found to so diminish the vitality and propagative power of the trichinae as to make it doubtful whether any of these parasites reach Europe in a living state, or in a condition to develop in the human body. So far as known, no single authentic instance, resting on competent scientific testimony, can be adduced of a case of trichiniasis in Europe arising from the use of American packed swine products as food, whether eaten raw or cooked. In each instance of outbreak of trichiniasis in Germany, where the habit of eating hog’s meat in an uncooked state makes the disease more prevalent than in other countries, the epidemic is not only distinctly traced to the consumption of the flesh of freshly- killed native hogs, but the further significant fact is observed that the virulence of the infection diminishes with the time elapsing between the killing of the animal and the consumption of its flesh, and that an in- terval of only afew days, especially when the meat is even slightly saltedy suffices to reduce the severity of the symptoms below a fatal stage. It may not be irrationally inferred that a still longer interval would wholly remove the danger of infection, even in uncooked meat. Scientific re- search as to the duration and conditions of propagative vitality of the trichinae after the death of the animal in which they are found, would appear to be a very necessary step toward a fuller knowledge of this. aspect of the question. In conclusion the Commissioners say that— After carefully studying every circumstance that in any way affects the condition of the American swine, from the hour of their birth to the landing of the cured meat in foreign ports, we are free to say that our exported pork in all its forms is nu y equal, perhaps superior, in its freedom from taint of every kind, eithei from < ts- ease or deterioration after slaughtering, to the pork of France or Germany, 01 any other country in which the hogs are confined within a narrow compass, and do not