Public Health Service has found that 50 per cent. of slaughter-house rats have been so infected. Then again insanitary rural slaughter-houses and yards are the breeding places of countless flies and these walk at liberty over the carcasses of the animals which are hung up to cool. Remember, that good clean food, plenty of fresh air, good ventilation in sleeping-rooms, and plenty of exercise will keep the body in a fine state in which to ward off most diseases which infest rural communities. I wish to quote a poem written by Dr. W. C. Rucker of the United States Public Health Service on insect transmission of disease. The flea and the fly, the mosquito and the louse, And the skeeter spread the chills All worked together to make undertakers' bills. The fly spread typhoid, and the louse spread typhus, too; Folks in that house were a mighty sickly crew. Along came a man and he cleaned up the house, Screened out the skeeter and swatted the louse. The fly and the flea he pinned against the wall; Now the people in that house are never sick at all. CHAPTER IX IMPORTANT PHASES OF THE FOOD PROBLEM As new experiments are being performed, the food problem develops important phases. As stated in the introductory chapter applied sanitary food principles, nutrition, flavor, the use of former waste products and the knowledge of food constituents are becoming subjects of much thought. The conservation of our food supply must likewise be taken into account. War between different countries sometimes makes the food problem an international issue. In case the food supply is cut off from one country and particularly necessary food articles which are not grown in that country or the consumption of a necessity is greater than the country can supply, we find many substitutes used and invented to supply the demand for the original article of food. One of the food products now generally known as "oleomargarine" was the outcome of a substitute for butter. The manufacture of oleomargarine is to-day one of the highly important branches of the meat packing trades, although but some forty years ago it was an imperfect infant industry under the protection or patronage of the French government. In 1870, under instructions from Napoleon the Third, Mege Mouries, a Frenchman, succeeded in producing from foreign fats taken from beef a substitute for butter, similar but less expensive. This Frenchman patented his process in the United States in 1873, and began making improvements on it. The "oleomargarine" of to-day is a product made from oleo oil (the fresh clear oil from intestinal and caul fats, including the omentum and sometimes the suet from freshly killed beef), neutral (from the fat of freshly killed pork), and milk. Some grades of oleomargarine contain in addition to the above certain per cents. of vegetable oils such as cottonseed oil, peanut oil and sesame oil. In France, at the instance of the legislative commission investigating methods to provide a remedy for the increasing cost of food, scientific experts of the French Institute are testing artificial meat produced by a Belgian chemist from the residue of malt after breweries have used it for beer making. The albumen thus extracted is washed and pressed into solid bricks, treated first with sulphuric acid and then with lime-water, and afterwards submitted to a number of operations of filtration and vacuum |