Various

“ We do not, as a rule, contract serious illness from impure coffee, or even from a poor quality of butcher-meat; but a dirty dairy and an infected milk-supply may, in a single day, sow the germs of a fever which may prostrate a village or community, and entail all the misery and hardship which serious illness inevitably carries in its train. ”

“ Walter kneels and takes the old miser’s hand. ‘Mr Monk,’ says he, ‘do you know me? I am Walter Tiltcroft, your friend.’
Silas Monk looks up, bursts into a wild fit of laughter, and then falls back senseless.
The detective lifts the old man in his strong arms as though handling a child. ‘Ascend the ladder!’ cries he quickly to Walter, ‘and show a light; not a moment must be lost in getting the old man home.’
Silas Monk was taken back to his tumble-down dwelling in the dismal row, and was tended with all possible care by his devoted grand-daughter. ”

“ I have heard that bees like monkshood, and will gather from it, but I have never seen them do so. If they did, their honey would be poisonous. Bees are passionately fond of clover and certain vetches, and they will desert any garden flowers for such natural feeding. Wild thyme and heather, which improve the flavour of the honey, bees perfectly revel in. Garden primroses, they do not care much for; and auriculas, however gaudy in colour, form no kind of attraction. The polyanthus they have a languid liking for. I have seen the wild-bees attack the cowslip; but not the honey-bee of our hives. ”

“ If tea be ‘faced’ with black-lead, or with Prussian-blue, turmeric, and China clay, there can be no question of the fraudulent and dangerous nature of such a practice; and when we read of preserved green peas being largely adulterated with sulphate of copper, and that a one-pound tin of green peas has been found to contain two and a half grains of this poisonous compound, it becomes evident that legislation directed against this worst of frauds—food-adulteration—is both necessary and highly requisite as an active feature of social law. ”

“ Regarding the prevention of the diseases caused by parasites, one stringent rule should be invariably kept in mind—namely, that all flesh-meat should be thoroughly cooked before it is consumed. The practice of eating underdone meat and smoked provisions is attended with great danger. A degree of heat sufficient to cook meat thoroughly, may, as a rule, be trusted to destroy parasitic life which the flesh may contain—although, of course, no one would sanction the employment as food of any meat known to be parasitically infested. ”

“ The odour of bad meat is highly distinctive; and its colour, as a rule, is suspiciously dark.
Regarding those animal-diseases which are believed to unfit the flesh for human use, considerable diversity of opinion exists. For example, the flesh of animals suffering from pleuro-pneumonia is regarded, almost universally, as unfit for consumption; although opinions exist which regard such flesh as harmless. Here, as in the case of milk, already alluded to, it is probable diversity of opinion arises from the different conditions under which the results of eating such flesh have been studied. ”

“ With regard to the liability of milk, taken from cows suffering from various diseases, to produce illness in man, many and varied opinions exist. A general rule, and one in the observance of which great safety exists, is, that milk from an animal in any way affected with disease should never be sold to the public. Where uncertainty exists, it is a matter of sheer common-sense to err on the safe side, and to incur no risk whatever. It is only fair to add, that milk from cows suffering from ‘foot-and-mouth’ disease has been consumed in many cases without injury resulting. ”

“ Of impurities in water, we shall treat hereafter; hence nothing need be said at present regarding this class of food-dangers. Our milk-supply and our meat-supply, however, are matters over which every householder may and should exercise supervision. Special dangers attach, for example, to the incautious treatment of milk. If milk is suspected to be adulterated, or of poor quality, the determination of the error or fraud is a matter of scientific examination; and with regard to the detection of milk-dangers, arising from disease-contagion, the same remark holds good. ”

“ Pure air and pure water are required by natural and common consent as necessities of existence; but the purity of the food we consume is no less a paramount condition of physical well-being. Food-impurities may be ranked under diverse heads. Adulteration of foods is thus a common cause of illness. The food, rendered of poor quality, does not contain the necessary amount of nutritious material; or it may impart disease from its being impregnated with matters foreign to its composition, and which have been added thereto for purposes of unfair trade-profit. ”

“ It is always a good plan to send late swarms of the hive into heather-bearing counties; for the bees being young, and having every inducement to work for the approaching winter, will store better than hives which have been ‘swarmed’ and deprived of honey, the colonies of which are worn or fatigued with the long-continued gathering of a summer in more southern counties. It must likewise be remembered that bees cannot gather, or rather will not do so, late in the autumn, when the cold prevents them sealing over with wax the top of the cell. ”

“ If a cow is affected with any disorder or disease, the milk of the animal should not be consumed by man. Only by attention to this rule can outbreaks of disease in man be avoided, and the public safety fully secured.
The flesh of animals is liable to acquire under certain conditions diseased properties. Hence, it is necessary that we should be on our guard against such sources of illness. Thus, certain fevers to which pigs, sheep, and cattle are subject render their flesh unfit for human food ”

“ There should be no leniency shown where cases of food-adulteration can be satisfactorily proved. Such practices form the worst of all frauds; they involve not merely commercial dishonesty, but include fraud against the health and well-being of the community and nation at large. ”

“ It is indeed unfortunate that the first information we usually receive regarding a milk-supply which is thoroughly impure or hurtful, is derived from the effects of such diseased matter on the human frame. In this case, we are unfortunately able only to prevent the spread of an epidemic of disease—the prevention of the epidemic itself is impossible, save, indeed, by the vigilance of the dairyman or farmer in keeping the milk he sells free from{402} all source of contamination. ”

“ The situation of our hive cannot always be in such a flowery land; and the beekeeper will do well to study the different flora and trees in the immediate neighbourhood of his hive, and endeavour to supply any deficiencies of pollen-bearing plants, as well as to give a gentle hint to the inhabitants of his hives of any honey-bearing plant from which he especially wants them to gather. Of course, in wild heather districts, there is no need to resort to planting or sowing for the bees; they will in such places always take care of themselves. ”

“ By-and-by there was a curious change in Pansy. Her shyness and her blushes disappeared: she spoke to him in much the same manner as she did to Jacob Cone or Jerry Mogridge or any of the other men about the place. At first he was disposed to be pleased with the change, for it seemed to make him more at home when he visited the cottage. Presently he began to fancy that she tried to keep out of his way, and he did not understand it. Then one day she had a basket of flowers to take up to the house for the young ladies, and Caleb accompanied her. ”

“ On being traced out, these cases are usually found to have been supplied with milk from one and the same source. When the surroundings of the dairy or farm are inspected, sewage-contamination is usually found. Leakage of drains into a water-supply is a common occurrence; and as this infected water is used in cleansing the milk-vessels, the origin of the epidemic is clearly enough accounted for. In some cases, dairies have been found to be constructed in a thoroughly insanitary manner, and cleanliness—the first condition where milk is concerned—is by no means always observed. ”

“ During a considerable portion of the year, the charr frequent the deepest parts of the lake, feeding upon and finding nourishment in the minute crustaceans and larvæ found in such places. In this respect the nature of this fish is actually the reverse of that of the trout, which delights in{407} the shallows, and feeds on the flies and moths hatched on the gravel-beds and elsewhere. Nature would doubtless ‘people’ Windermere, Coniston, and other lakes with that fish which could best live in its deepest parts, and this fish is the charr. ”

“ Good meat in a fresh state should be firm and elastic to the touch. The characteristic odour of fresh meat should be present, and the meat-tissue should be dry, or at the most merely moist. The appearance of good meat is marbled, and its action on blue litmus-paper is acid—that is, it turns the blue paper to a red colour. Bad meat, on the other hand, is usually extremely moist, or even wet ”

“ Delta-metal, a new metal said to be not unlikely to rival steel under certain conditions, has, according to the Hamburg Correspondent, been lately submitted to the Polytechnic Association in Berlin. Delta-metal contains iron in addition to the ordinary constituents of brass. It takes on an excellent polish, and is much less liable to rust than either steel or iron. When wrought or rolled, it is harder than steel, but not when cast only. ”

“ Such inspection is never complained of by those tradesmen who take a pride in their occupation, and who endeavour, by ordinary attention to business, to secure the purity of the milk they sell. It might be added also, that if other articles of food are duly liable to official examination, and if the articles sold by grocer and butcher are duly supervised and examined, there is no reason why the premises of the dairyman should not be similarly inspected. ”

“ They had no science, no arts, no culture. Their physical strength was their glory; and their weapons of war, their defence at home, served also as their passport into the lands of the stranger whom they plundered and slew. ”

“ Sewage-emanations and other gases, paint, metallic matters, &c., are all readily taken up by milk. Hence the absolute necessity for seeing that when milk is received into our homes, it is stored in a safe and sanitary position. Milk should never be stored in metallic vessels in the first place; and it should not be kept in cupboards or other receptacles which are situated in the neighbourhood of sinks, closets, or open drains. Too frequently, such carelessness in the home-treatment of the milk-supply leads to illness, which is all the more serious, because its origin is unsuspected. ”

“ In Somersetshire, bees find honey from the many miles of apple-orchard stretching away to the mild county of Devon; and farmers well know that a good bee season, with a warm and early spring, means a plentiful show of fruit in the autumn for cider. ”

“ Our dogs being liable to harbour certain forms of internal parasites highly injurious to man, should also have their health and feeding inspected and supervised. And it may be lastly mentioned, by way of encouragement in sanitary reform, and in the care and selection of our flesh-foods, that as far back as the reign of Henry III. the desirability of securing meat free from parasites was clearly known. ”

“ In this new machine, the crushed ore, mingled with water, is thrown in small quantities into a moving wave of quicksilver, and not merely across a quicksilvered plate, as under the old system. The tiniest spangles of gold are by this means speedily absorbed by or amalgamated with the liquid metal, the two being afterwards separated by heat in the usual manner. In one mine where Mr Moon’s machine is in use the increase of yield is estimated at forty pounds sterling per week, so it would seem that the cost of the appliance is soon repaid to its purchaser. ”

“ Although interest in matters archæological shows a healthy increase, we have to regret a decrease of interest in another important branch of knowledge. The Royal Geographical Society, which has just held its anniversary meeting, has had to deplore, by the mouth of its President, Lord Aberdare, that the Council have failed in their attempt to introduce the efficient study of geography into the curriculum of our great public schools, such as Eton and Harrow. ”

“ The International Health Exhibition, London, which follows so closely upon the Fisheries Exhibition, and occupies the same spacious site, bids fair to be a success, although it can hardly be expected to be quite so popular with the multitude as its predecessor. ”

“ This worm, if eaten by man with pork, develops with great rapidity within the human digestive system, and produces enormous numbers of young, which, boring their way through the tissues to the muscles of the patient, cause serious and often fatal illness. Once in the muscles, no further change ensues to the worms, which simply degenerate into mere specks of lime. It is this trichina which produces the disease known as trichinosis. Fatal epidemics of this disease are not uncommon on the continent, especially where the unsanitary practice of eating uncooked or dried sausages is greatly in vogue. ”

“ We cannot, however, commend the practice of netting, which is not sport, but wholesale destruction.
SILAS MONK. A TALE OF LONDON OLD CITY.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.—CONCLUSION.
The streets in the old city are dark and deserted as the detective and Walter Tiltcroft hasten through them towards Crutched Friars. The street-lamps cast limited spaces of light upon the fronts of lofty warehouses and counting-houses, leaving limitless spaces of shadow about and above. The windows of these mansions have the blankness of blind eyes; the great, black, massive office-doors are firmly closed ”

“ The question of ‘braxy mutton’ may be debatable; in that of meat infested with parasites, no argument is permissible. All parasitic animals are liable to induce disease of more or less serious character in man; hence, if meat can be proved to be so infested, it should be summarily rejected.
The most common parasites which man is liable to acquire from flesh of various kinds are certainly tapeworms, which have been frequently described, and the dangers from which are well known. ”

“ Without losing their own native hardihood and fearlessness, they quickly absorbed into them the spirit of the peoples and institutions among which they had taken root; and before a century had passed over their heads in France, they had already become one of the great political forces of Europe. ”