HYDATIDS IN SHEEP

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 39, 9 November 1940, Page 7

HYDATIDS IN SHEEP

Dominion’s “Humiliating”

Record

Dominion Special Service.

PALMERSTON N„ November 8.

The humiliating record of New Zealand in hydatids disease in sheep in comparison with countries less progressive was commented on in an interview by Dr. E. W. Bennett, Director of Hydatids Research at Otago Medical School. Rumanian farmers, he said, were largely ignorant' peasants and might, be expected to be afflicted With a much heavier burden of hydatids disease than New Zealand. That was by no means the case. It was doubtful whether any other country, except for Uruguay and parts of the Argentine—again with an ignorant peasant population—was as badly off as the Dominion.

England had more sheep to the acre, with one exception, than any other country, said Dr. Bonnett; Rumania had more sheep a head of population, again with one exception, than any oilier country. The exception in both cases was New Zealand. The Dominion had the world’s greatest number of sheep to the square mile, and nowhere else did the. sheep population outnumber the’human population by 20 to one.

Humiliating Recerd

"It is humiliating that our record in hydatids should rate with, or be below, that of countries which we like to consider less progressive than our own,” he said. “It is the more humiliating in that we have to take the full blame for the situation iu which we find, ourselves. The standard in England is incomparably higher. In New Zealand our surgeons are experts at operating for hydatids, because they have abundant practice. Iu England the disease is so rare that it always comes as a surprise, aud there is a real risk that through its unexpectedness an incorrect diagnosis may be made. An account of nearly every hydatids operation is published, as it is a variety that; always arouses interest, but in New Zealand most, cases tire referred to only as statistical entries.” It is not (o New Zealand’s credit that half the sheep and cattle had that unnecessary disease. One reason why the disease was rare in England was that carcasses were not left, on the ground to rot. or to be eaten by scavenging dogs; another reason was that English farmers did not. throw livers and lungs to their dogs as New Zealand farmers did. England would have eradicated the disease if the problem bad ever become acute. Holland ami Denmark were determined to do so. am! if any sheep or cattle beast was found to I>o infected the whole carcass was destroyed. The Dominion <•<>111,1 not nlTor.l Io do that—it would cost aboiil live of six million lamb ami mnlton carcasses a year, or some £15,000 a day.

A fiirllier reason for ihe contrast between I'higlnnd ami New Zealand was Hie absurdly g'l'eat dog population in llm Dominion. 11 was second in that respect only to Uruguay, whose present dog population was one of the major handicaps in her pastoral <levelopnient.