Note 1556 — Chapter XXIV · OF POISONING BY DISEASED AND DECAYED ANIMAL MATTER.

I have taken the liberty of applying this term to an establishment unique perhaps in the history of the world. The Voirie et Chantier d’Ecarrissage of Montfaucon, which has existed close to the walls of Paris for several centuries, is an enclosure of many acres, where the contents of the necessaries of the city are collected in enormous pits, and where horses, dogs, and cats are flayed to the amount of forty or fifty thousand annually. The fat is melted for blowpipe lamps; the bones are in a great measure burnt on the premises for fuel; the intestines are made into coarse gut for machinery; the flesh, blood, and garbage are heaped to putrefy for manure; and in summer a bed of compost is spread to breed maggots for feeding poultry. There is no drain. Description cannot convey an idea of the stench. The committee of the Board of Health, appointed to make inquiries into the best mode of abating the nuisance, in vain attempted to penetrate into the place. Yet the workmen and their families are stout, healthy, and long lived.