Slaughter-Houses in Great Britain

Abstract

THE eleventh Benjamin Ward Richardson memorial lecture was delivered, under the chairman ship of Sir James Crichton-Browne, before the Model Abattoir Society on November 30 by Mr. T. Topping, who chose for his title “The Slaughter-House Problem”. He commenced by saying that had local authorities more generally carried out the advice given by Richardson when he founded the Model Abattoir Society fifty years ago, there would have been no slaughter-house problem to-day, and there would have been greater benefit for other public health protective measures. As it is, there is a very real problem owing to the fact that the slaughter house provisions of the Act of 1847 are still the principal law on the subject to-day. No advance was made by the Public Health Act of 1875, so that many buildings quite unsuitable for the purpose came into existence as private slaughter-houses. The Rural District Council (Slaughter Houses) Order of 1924 gave State recognition to and largely increased the capital value of hundreds of unsuitable buildings that had been erected as slaughter-houses prior to the order. Thus for nearly sixty years, most local authorities steadily increased the financial difficulties of providing for the only effective means of supervision of slaughter-houses and of securing hygienic preparation of carcase meat. According to Mr. Topping, there are only about 110 slaughter houses in Great Britain where the buildings and arrangements are satisfactory, whereas in a large percentage, complete supervision and inspection is extremely difficult if not impossible. As a solution of the problem, he suggested first that the Ministry of Health should obtain either directly, or indirectly through the county councils, information as to the eondition of all the private slaughter-houses in the country, particularly as to deficiencies in meat inspection and their cause, and secondly, that abattoir provision should be on a county basis, instead of allowing each local authority to have its own abattoir.