THE VICTORIAN COMMISSIONERS ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.

Bruce Herald, Volume II, Issue 49, 16 March 1865, Page 8

THE VICTORIAN COMMISSIONERS ON PLEURO-PNEUMONIA.

The pleuro-pneumonia commissioners have expended the £1,250 voted by Parliament, and have put their names to a report which we received with suspicion at the time, and which the country would have been much better without. And, as for the commissioners themselves," they most; assuredly have not risen in the estimation of the public by the part they have played in this unfortunate piece of business. A Royal commission is usually composed of men of full capacity and undoubted integrity, whose conclusions and dicta have weight accordingly. This report we speak of was, therefore, accepted by most people as an altogether trustworthy document, and the disease our commissioners undertook to investigate the nature of has been proclaimed far and wide to be non-conta-gious. In the adjoining colony of South Australia, from which our cattle have been shut out by legislative enactment, but into which some infected animals have, nevertheless, managed to pass, this is the view taken of the report, and we find an article in the leading journal there declaring to its readers that the disease in question is covered with mystery, that neither science nor experiment has been able to account for it, coming and going without apparent cause, amenable to no remedial measures, running its course, and. then passing' away ; but that something' is gained when we learn it to be non-contagious, " even though no precautions can prevent it, and no carelessness can increase it" — >and all because our learned commissioners said so in their report. But what are the real facts of the case ? Before the report could have been written, one of the few animals experimented on was killed, suffering, it was said, from quite a different disease ; but, according to those who ought to know, a victim to true pleuro-pneumonia, and, hurried as was the publication of the report at last, this had scarcely seen the light when another of the animals was killed in an advanced stage of the disease. These are acknowledged to ; but it is whispered that yet another was buried one morning" at an hour when honest folks are mostly in their beds. Then a fourth has been killed since the sale under very doubtful circumstances, while a fifth appears to have had one lung destroyed by this or some similar disease, and to have only partially recovered in other respects.

The whole of the cattle have not been traced out as yet, but a proportion of the seventeen head experimented on has been, accounted for quite sufficient to- show that the commissioners have proved the disease to be highly contagious, even though the Tasmanian cattle were unusually hardy, and were long in taking- it. Of the mode in which the experiments were conducted we know but little, for witnesses, whether professional or otherwise, were carefully excluded from the sheds. If information had been the object why not have invited the co-operation of veterinary surgeons and stockowners, who have specially studied the subject, and who. volunteered their assistance 1 Why not^^ have appointed Dr Thomson on the commission when a vacancy occurred, and when he was most anxious to prove the truth or fallacy of his opinion, that this disease is almost identical with measles in the human being — a point of the utmost importance to the public f Or why not have allowed Mr Black, one of our first and most energetic commissioners, to takeIns seat amongst them after he had been invited by the Chief Secretary to act? And lastly, when the experiments were deemed to have been carried far enough, why not have had all the remaining' animals, slaughtered and their viscera examined by as many veterinary surgeons as were inj clined to go to. the ground,, instead of selling them for a mere trifle, and with a puffing advertisement, as beasts that would uot sicken under the strongest provocation ?- All these things have been noted from, time to time, . and they go far in suppo^W of assertions made at first,, that- this commission was appointed to arrive at a foregone conclusion. If such should, by any possibility have been the case, the commissioners are open to the grave charge of* i being found out; but, taking the most favorable view we can of their actions and intentions, they have, at the best, sadly managed their business ;• and the reportissued to the world at large, with the Gov vernment imprimafAir, nnd therefore on the credit of the colon}-, is nothinginoren opless than an untruth, with circumstances eminently calculated to mislead the unwary. — ' Australasian.'