that the teeth are perfectly healthy, and the enamel sound; the alveolar processes are not diseased; there is no accumulation of tartar between these teeth, but they are firm and white. I next present a specimen from my cabinet of a different character.

"The animal from which this latter drawing is taken, is of about the same age as the preceding; but instead of being kept upon the natural food, the animal was fed upon what is called "still-slop," which was received hot from an adjacent distillery. Here it will be seen, first, that the whiteness of the teeth is gone,-in other words, they have lost their enamel. In fact, the teeth on each side of the jaw are the only ones on which any enamel can be seen. Nor is the decay confined to the enamelled portion; even the bony part of the teeth has suffered; these teeth are evidently smaller than those in the preceding plate, although the jaw is of the same size. Caries have also affected them, as can be easily seen by observing the black spots in the teeth. The alveolar processes have likewise taken part in the disease; ulcers have formed at the roots of the teeth, the portion of the bone opposite these roots

BURDELL'S TESTIMONY.

151

has become affected and has broken off, and one of the teeth is also

gone.

"In the specimen last presented, many of the interstices were filled with tartar, which was removed before the drawing was made, to show the natural state of the teeth themselves. It may be said this is only a single specimen; but such is not the fact. I have examined several large milk-farms around New-York, from which the city is supplied with milk. In most of these, "stillslops" are used as food for cows; each cow consumes about thirty gallons daily, and wherever these slops are used, the teeth of these animals are more or less affected.

"Those kept near a distillery, and where the food is furnished to them hot, exhibit more marks of decay than those kept at a greater distance, where the still-slops are cooler before the animal is fed upon them.*"

The foregoing statements, with one exception, have been fully confirmed by the observations of the writer. He has not been able to discover, with Mr. Burdell, that the teeth of cattle fed with slop hot and direct from the distillery, are more affected with caries than those which are kept at a greater distance, provided slop constituted their chief or only food. At the distilleries they usually receive the slop at an equal temperature, having been somewhat cooled in its passage through the gutters to the pens; while to those at a distance, the slop being conveyed in hogsheads from which the air is excluded, the heat is longer retained; and being fed in that condition to the cattle, and likewise when perfectly cold, the teeth are exposed to greater variations of temperature in the latter than in the former case. Now so far as temperature is con

* Burdell on Diseases of the Teeth, p. 65.

152

OTHER ANIMALS DISEASED.

cerned, as has been ascertained by microscopic observations, it is the sudden transition from hot to cold, and vice versa, which produces the greatest injury to the teeth; for the enamel, by the unequal expansion and contraction, is fractured, and the consequent exposure of the bony substance of the teeth to the action of acrid fluids, subjects them to rapid decay.

Slop, as before remarked, is preferred hot, because in that state it is said to excite a greater flow of milk. But from all that has been ascertained by careful and protracted observation, and from the experience of those engaged in the business, it appears that this kind of food, in whatever condition received, destroys the teeth; and according to the admitted principles before stated, the aliment which uniformly produces such effects upon these organs, must also affect the general health of the animals that feed upon it.

But the unhealthiness of distillery-slop is not peculiar to cattle. Horses and swine are likewise affected by it. A few pails' full given to a horse, or even the moistening of his feed with it, has been known seriously to injure the teeth, and, through ignorance of the consequences, some valuable animals have been ruined by it.

Where this refuse cannot be used to better advantage, as is the case in some of our cities and country places, swine are extensively fed with it. The method of penning swine for this purpose, in the city of Philadelphia, is sufficiently singular to deserve notice. A brick building, four stories high, is fitted up for this purpose, and filled with swine from the cellar upwards. The whole is divided into apartments ten feet square, and six feet high. Each apartment contains from ten to fifteen swine. And it is said, that two brick buildings are now erecting for the accom

Swine at these

modation of about two thousand more. establishments are kept on slop for seventy-five cents per month. The arrangements, so far as cleanliness and ventillation are concerned, appear to be extremely defective. The darkness, steam, and odor, are intolerable. It is stated that a large number of the swine die within the first two months after admission, and that only swine of first rate constitution can stand the treatment.*

Additional testimony to the injurious effects of this food on the health of swine, has been incidentally furnished by an association in Tennessee, whose inquiries were addressed to practical distillers, in order to obtain from them opinions and calculations on the comparative lucrativeness of feeding stock with grain, or converting it into whisky. The report on the subject says: "We have succeeded in obtaining the testimony of a number whose veracity cannot be doubted, and whose experience and management must have weight with an enlightened public." One distiller says: "At the beginning I had forty head of hogs; but during the spring and autumn, about ten of them died from fits, brought on by the poison of the copper mixed with the slop."

Another distiller says: "With regard to the opinion that a grain distillery is a good place to raise swine, I can only say that I have never been able to raise them without a considerable quantity of corn. Swine taken to a distillery

remain so until the spring

in the fall or winter poor, will of the year, unless you feed with corn as well as slop. Soon as the weather becomes warm, young hogs will take a cough and die, and if there be any cure for it, corn is the medicine. Old hogs, if they have the slop after the grass

• Vide Temperance Journal, Vol. I. p. 9.

rises in the spring, and have the privilege of both, will grow and fatten fast, although, without great care, many will die during the spring and summer with fits, occasioned by the slop cankering in the still, and with all care you will lose some, for fat swine will sometimes die."* A private correspondent who has had much experience in this business remarks, "that slop is certain death to young pigs when fed to the mother." But it is not necessary to multiply extracts of this kind.

From the information obtained on this subject, it is evident that the fattening of swine on this kind of food, on account of the mortality thereby produced among the porkers, is now extensively regarded as an undesirable, because it is an unprofitable business. Whether this mortality is occasioned by the acid and acrid properties of the slop, or as some suppose by the copper, and by the poison of the alcohol being mixed with it, it is not important to determine. The fact that many die, is indisputable; and the loss from this cause, as estimated by numerous other practical men who have been consulted, is stated to be twenty-five per cent. The livers of some become enlarged, and diseased, and filled with tubercles like the livers of drunkards; some die with fits outright; but the greater number, especially of young swine, as the weather becomes warm, take a cough and die. And better far that they all die, than that such pork be eaten. Swine, under the most favorable management, are particularly subject to scrofulous diseases; and it cannot be that diseased pork, or the flesh of animals partaking of the bad properties of such food is wholesome. But on these analogous effects we will not enlarge.

* Vide Temperance Journal, p. 101.