riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (03/21/85)
While we're on the subject, what can you good people tell me about cattle mutilations? I've written to Rev. "Bob" about it, but I couldn't afford to send him the case of fruit cocktail he wanted as a sacred offering. Waiting for slack or enlightenment, whichever comes first, Prentiss
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/22/85)
My aunt is a vet. When she was in school at U of Saskatchewan, she was told this story. There are some diseases which kill cattle and which also leave the meat unfit for human consumption -- or at least, they won't pass government regulations, whether they should is another story. In times gone by some farmers, having found a dead cow in their pasture, would singe its coat in a particular fashion to simulate ``struck by lightning.'' Lightning struck cattle were okay for eating. So the vets, who had to certify a cause of death for the corpses, were told to look for tell-take bits of wax and other signs that the farmers might have been up to something. However, this training did not help a professor of my aunt's who was called out one day to certify that a whole herd had been ``killed by aliens''. Strange, but under the mutilations, it sure looked like (I think) Anthrax... Laura Creighton utzoo!laura ps -- It could have been a friend of the professor.