Waste products and undeveloped substances : a synopsis of progress made in their economic utilisation during the last quarter of a century at home and abroad / by P.L. Simmonds.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Waste products and undeveloped substances : a synopsis of progress made in their economic utilisation during the last quarter of a century at home and abroad / by P.L. Simmonds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    65/504 (page 57)
    Hoofs, 12 lbs., 8s. per cwt.; made into piucushions and snuff-boxes when polished, or for gelatine, glue, and prus- Old shoes, 10 lbs.; worth os. to 10s. the cwt. for old iron; sometimes re-worked up into shoes. Horse-flesh as food.—The sale of horse meat has now become a legalised and recognised trade in many of the Continental States. The Prefect of Police chose_ from among eminent and competent judges a commission to inquire into the quality of the flesh taken from horses which had died, or been killed, in Paris and its environs. The commissioners were, like the general public, at first prejudiced against horse-flesh, and they indicated that prejudice in the terms of the report:— Nous ne pouvons decouvrir que cette chair ne soit fort honne et fort savoureuse; plusieurs membres de la com- mission en ont mange, et Us n'ont pas trouve qu'il exist at entre elle et celle du boeuf une difference sensible. M. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, ]Drofessor at the French Museum of Natural History, delivered two lectures on the advan- tages of bringing horse-flesh into use for food. There is no reason, he declares, why horse-flesh should not be eaten; like the ox and the sheep, the horse is herbivorous, and no deleterious element enters into its food or structure. Its flesh, besides, is full of azote. The ancient Germans and Scandinavians had a marked liking for horse-flesh. They preserved a certain race of white horses to be sacri- ficed to Odin, and, after the sacrifice, they boiled the flesh and feasted on it. The introduction of Christianity put an end to this custom, and probably led to the aversion to horse-flesh which is now generally manifested in Europe. The nomad tribes of Northern Asia make horse-flesh their favourite food, though they have numerous flocks of oxen and sheep. In spite of the dislike of horse-flesh in modern Europe, the Danes recommenced the use of it. During the siege of Copenhagen in 1807, the Government formally authorised the sale of it in butchers' shops, and since then it has been constantly sold: there is even in that city a privileged slaughter-house for horses, placed under the surveillance of the Veterinary School, and horse-flesh is Bold in it at the average price of 12c. the pound. Parent Duchatel, an esteemed writer, asserts that large quantities