The treatment of tank offal and the gases from rendering tanks

Ben.C. Miller
1875 Journal of the Franklin Institute  
Sanitary Superintendent. To sanitarians, and indeed to the citizens of all large cities, the questions how to care for animals, how to kill them, and the proper method of caring for the products of slaughter houses, are exceedingly grave ones; questions that not only concern the health of the community, but the comfort of individuals. In considering the business of slaughtering and the care of the products, I shall refer to the manner in which it was conducted in Chicago up to 1865, mention the
more » ... improvements made since that time, and give descriptions of some of the apparatus now in use. At the period referred to, live stock was received at the different yariis in the city ; the principal ones being at Twenty-second street. The accommodations were not first class, the pens were not planked in many cases, and the animals were compelled to stand in the mud. In 1865 the new yards of the Union Stock Yard Company were completed, and the cattle, etc., were subsequently received at that point. The entire yards were drained as well as the nature of the ground would admit, the roadways and alleys macadamized, and the pens for cattle planked ; while those for sheep and hogs were in addition roofed to protect them from the weather. Water is furnished throughout the yards from an artesian well. The superintendent, Mr. John B. Shennan, who is absolute in authority, has a large force constantly employed in taking care of the pens and keeping them clean, every effort being made to render the animals comfortable. Inspectors pass through the yards constantly, and all maimed and diseased cattle found are not permitted to leave, but are killed and sold to a company who own a rendering establishment on the Calumet
doi:10.1016/0016-0032(75)90280-x fatcat:ufzi6luvpbf7ni65hvdleqvx24