Editing Slaughterhouse (section)

===Regulation and expansion===
[[File:Richardson's_abattoir.jpg|thumb|right|Blueprint for a mechanized public abattoir, designed by slaughterhouse reformer [[Benjamin Ward Richardson]]]]
These slaughterhouses were regulated by law to ensure good standards of hygiene, the prevention of the spread of disease and the minimization of needless animal cruelty. The slaughterhouse had to be equipped with a specialized water supply system to effectively clean the operating area of blood and offal. Veterinary scientists, notably [[George Fleming (veterinarian)|George Fleming]] and John Gamgee, campaigned for stringent levels of inspection to ensure that [[epizootics]] such as [[rinderpest]] (a devastating outbreak of the disease covered all of Britain in 1865) would not be able to spread. By 1874, three meat inspectors were appointed for the London area, and the [[Public Health Act 1875]] required local authorities to provide central slaughterhouses (they were only given powers to close unsanitary slaughterhouses in 1890).<ref>{{cite journal|title=The vital city: public analysis, dairies and slaughterhouses in nineteenth-century|author=Chris Otter|journal=Cultural Geographies|year=2006|url=http://www.geog.canterbury.ac.nz/powerpoints/Otter%20%282006%29.pdf}}</ref> Yet the appointment of slaughterhouse inspectors and the establishment of centralised abattoirs took place much earlier in the British colonies, such as the colonies of New South Wales and Victoria, and in Scotland where 80% of cattle were slaughtered in public abattoirs by 1930.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Otter |first1=Chris |title=Diet for a large planet |date=2020 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=US |isbn=978-0-226-69710-9 |page=38 }}</ref> In Victoria the [http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/maa1850n17240.pdf ''Melbourne Abattoirs Act 1850'' (NSW)] "confined the slaughtering of animals to prescribed public abattoirs, while at the same time prohibiting the killing of sheep, lamb, pigs or goats at any other place within the city limits".<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Trabsky|first1=Marc|title=Institutionalising the Public Abattoir in Nineteenth Century Colonial Society|journal=Australian Feminist Law Journal|year=2014|volume=40|issue=2|page=180|doi=10.1080/13200968.2014.981357|s2cid=142813253}}</ref> Animals were shipped alive to British ports from Ireland, from Europe and from the colonies and slaughtered in large abattoirs at the ports. Conditions were often very poor.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Otter |first1=Chris |title=Diet for a large planet |date=2020 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=US |isbn=978-0-226-69710-9 |page=42 }}</ref>

Attempts were also made throughout the British Empire to reform the practice of slaughter itself, as the methods used came under increasing criticism for causing undue pain to the animals. The eminent physician, [[Benjamin Ward Richardson]], spent many years in developing more humane methods of slaughter. He brought into use no fewer than fourteen possible anesthetics for use in the slaughterhouse and even experimented with the use of electric current at the [[Royal Polytechnic Institution]].<ref>{{DNBSupp|wstitle=Richardson, Benjamin Ward|first=D'Arcy|last= Power}}</ref> As early as 1853, he designed a lethal chamber that would gas animals to death relatively painlessly{{Citation needed|date=November 2023|reason=What evidence is there of relative painlessness?}}, and he founded the Model Abattoir Society in 1882 to investigate and campaign for humane methods of slaughter.

The invention of [[refrigeration]] and the expansion of transportation networks by sea and rail allowed for the safe exportation of meat around the world. Additionally, meat-packing millionaire [[Philip Danforth Armour]]'s invention of the "disassembly line" greatly increased the productivity and profit margin of the [[meat packing industry]]: "according to some, animal slaughtering became the first [[mass-production]] industry in the United States." This expansion has been accompanied by increased concern about the physical and mental conditions of the workers along with controversy over the ethical and environmental implications of slaughtering animals for meat.<ref name="humanecologyreview"/>

The Edinburgh abattoir, which was built in 1910, had well lit laboratories, hot and cold water, gas, microscopes and equipment for cultivating organisms. The English 1924 Public Health (Meat) Regulations required notification of slaughter to enable inspection of carcasses and enabled inspected carcasses to be marked.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Otter |first1=Chris |title=Diet for a large planet |date=2020 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=US |isbn=978-0-226-69710-9 |page=119-20 }}</ref>

The development of slaughterhouses was linked with industrial expansion of by-products. By 1932 the British by-product industry was worth about £97 million a year, employing 310,000 people. The Aberdeen slaughterhouse sent hooves to Lancashire to make glue, intestines to Glasgow for sausages and hides to the Midland tanneries.
In January 1940 the British government took over the 16,000 slaughterhouses and by 1942 there were only 779.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Otter |first1=Chris |title=Diet for a large planet |date=2020 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |location=US |isbn=978-0-226-69710-9 |page=41, 160 }}</ref>