HYDATID CONTROL

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 234, 1 July 1939, Page 7

HYDATID CONTROL

Need For Use Of Drug Stressed

DR. E. W. BENNETT’S VIEWS

Dr. E. W. Bennett, of the Medical School, Dunedin, in his sixth series of articles on hydatid eradication, writes a scathing indictment of those who have failed to make full use of arecoline in the treatment of their dogs.

“In any reform," he states, “there will always be a clever faction ,who know better, who will walk in gutters gather than admit that a tar-sealed surface is better. Those who cleverly refrain from using arecoline are those who have failed to absorb the fact that the unclosed dog is a menace, an evil thing that has sent thousands of New Zealanders into hospital for a grave operation. They would probably object to having their homes overrun with cockroaches, but the undosed dog is worse.

“The undosed dog is unfit for human companionship, because it has already caused an intolerable drain on human health and life. It is not fit to associate even with animals, because almost the whole of New Zealand's farm animal population over a year in age is infected with one dog-spread disease or another, and half of them with hydatids. It is a stigma on the cleanliness and hygiene of its owner, for it stands in violent contrast to all our principles of decency and health. “Some Fail In Duty.”

“Our children and grandchildren will learn with horrified amazement that it was not till 1939 that we began the systematic dosing of dogs, and that some failed even then in their duty. There are children in New Zealand Infected with hydatids, who, if they survive, may not discover their misfortune till they arrive in hospital, perhaps in 1949, 1959, 1969. They will yiant to know why. They may want to know whom to blame. “We have been almost desperate for want of a good means of fighting hydatids,” said a farmer last week at the New Plymouth Winter Show, “and now that we have got it —and we certainly have —there are some who fail to use it.” The verdict of farmers who have tried arecoline is a highly appreciative one; it is agreed on all sides that arecoline is amazingly efficient in its action, and that there is a marked improvement in the dogs. But this is only a side-issue; the essential purpose in using arecoline is not to improve the health of dogs, but to clear our homes and farms of a dog-spread infection. The first visible results in this direction may be expected ambfl& next season’s lambs, except that farmers who have already been using arecoline for one or more seasons have already reported that instead of almost universal spoiling of sheep and lamb livers with spots and blemishes, they are now able to use nearly every liver. “Prefer To Take Risk.” i “On a farm producing lines of lambs virtually free from hydatids, there is a high degree of assurance that the home is equally safe for human beings. Owners who prefer taking a risk rather than dosing their dogs should at least send their children to boarding schools. “What of the stories of distress and pain among dogs after treatment with arecoline? It is to be acknowledged that certain pampered dogs, specially from pedigree stock, have such a constitution that any medicine, should be given ,in doses below < the normal amount: To make the lesser dose effective, it is necessary to prepare the dog a day or two beforehand with a laxative such as paraffin or glycerine, a method advocated as the most efficient in any case. But the number of dogs in distress has been small. After investigating closely as many of such stories as possible. I have to report that many are purely fictitious, and depend on rumours which fade into thin air when tracked to their source. “In view of what has come to light in investigating rumours of this class, it is necessary to warn the public against statements made by certain persons who have dogs or medicines for sale, and also against certain so-, cieties which have interfered in a humane and urgent national necessity. It is Unwise to rely on hearsay, specially if from an interested or biased source. . Normal Symptoms. “A greater number of these stories has been due to misinterpretation of normal symptoms. Some people have had no idea what is to be expected in the process of purging a dog; 1 a revelation of the necessity for drawing forcible attention to the menace of the undosed dog. In all the remaining cases, almost without exception, where actual trouble has occurred, there has been evidence of overdosage or of 'freak methods, or of some other more or less gross departure from instructions. The vast majority of owners have succeeded in dosing their dogs correctly, but there have been others unable to follow the printed instructions. Such people should not own a dog. No one who is unable to keep his dog free from parasites should own a dog. No person should own a car or a gun or a dog if he thereby becomes a menace.

“As for the stories of dogs dying after use of arecoline, most are baseless rumours, and not one case of death has occurred which coul'd be shown to have been due to arecoline. A simple calculation shows that of the 180,000 registered dogs, allowing 10 years as tlie average life, dogs are.dying in any case at the rate of one every halfhour. Suppose arecoline were a thousand times more deadly than the wildest rumours would imply, the rate of death would become say one dog each 20 minutes, which is about the actual total in any case if we allow for unregistered dogs. Suppose that arecoline killed 20,000 dogs a year, that would (Continued at foot of next column.)

be a one-thousandth of the number of farm animals infected with hydatids. “Not all the dogs in the town or country can be weighed in the balance against a little girl admitted last year to a city hospital through hydatids in the brain, suffering from paralysis and Unrangement. and too far advanced for surgical rescue: nor against, a second almost identical case in the same hospital. likewise ending fatally during convalescence, after the brain operation, in consequence of the bursting of another cyst in the heart. And their are societies in existence that have complained that the use of arecoline is cruelty—to tlie verminous animals responsible for every one of the thousands of hospital cases already standing to our discredit.”