Greetings! Welcome back. For the next few weeks we will be sharing with you some very important information regarding animals and disease.

The general public is not aware of the wide-spread prevalence and rapid increase of disease among domestic and wild animals, and the serious nature of many of these diseases; therefore they are not awake to the possible dangers involved in the use of animal flesh and other animal products, for human food.

The compiler has gathered data concerning this matter from sources which will be acceptable to all classes of people because they are above question. This information is classified in this treatise.

That the reader may get the full force and importance of the statements of authorities consulted, their original statements are used almost entirely even though portions of them are somewhat technical. Considerable pathology caused by these diseases is explained.

The reports of these authorities also deal, in certain instances with methods for eradicating these diseases, and some of these methods are of unusual concern to those considering using animal flesh and animal products as human food. It is hoped that the reader will take a deep interest in every fact presented.

The above title was used b Karl F. Meyer, M.D., Director of the Medical Center, The George Williams Hooper Foundation, University of California San Francisco, as the title of a treatise on animal diseases published in the “Proceedings of the Institute of Medicine of Chicago,” May-June 1931, pp. 234-261.

The following statements taken from that treatise are typical ones.

“Diseased animals play an important role in the realm of human pathology”. “The Biological laws which govern the general principle of human and animal pathology are essentially the same.” Contemporaneous treatises and reviews detail the role of the domesticated and the most important wild game animals as spreaders of disease. In fact, this aspect of communicable diseases is stressed. “The problems involved in the continuous flow of parasites from the wild animals to domesticated animals are, however, only a small fraction of the multitude of other unsolved questions which are met by the student of the animal Kingdom as a reservoir of parasites. The end of this cursory trip through the animal Kingdom has been reached. The main lesson to be gathered from the incomplete data is that there are within the environment of man reservoirs of disease which cannot be ignored.

Dr. Meyer did not write his treatise in the interest of vegetarianism, but the facts he records concerning the diseases prevalent in the animal kingdom are of intense interest to vegetarians.  

This chapter will consist almost exclusively of quotations from and citations to the writings of workers who are specializing in the field of animal diseases of whom there are no better authorities in the United States. The facts presented are so astounding that some readers might be tempted to doubt them unless thus documented. 

“Nearly half of the diseases that attack human beings are also diseases of animals.”

Quote to Note:

” A very serious objection to the practice of meat eating is found in the fact that disease is becoming more and more widespread among the animal creation. The curse because of sin causes the earth to groan under the inhabitants thereof, and every living thing is subject to disease and death. Cancers, tumors, diseases of the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, all exist among the animals that are used for food.”        7MR421.1

Don’t forget to come back next week for more lessons in the School of Health! May God Bless!