FULLER TEST URGED

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 136, 5 December 1935, Page 9

FULLER TEST URGED

SPAHLINGER VACCINE

REPORT IN LONDON

\ LONDON, December 3. The joint committee of the Medical and Agricultural Research Councils, reporting on the Spahlinger vaccine test, says: "We suggest that a thorough ' test be made in England, but until it! is shown that the vaccine is effective! against natural as well as experimental I methods of infection its practical appli- i cation would be deferred. The num-' ber of animals Spahlinger used in the tests was insufficient to give conclusive results." ■

A report on experiments* made on calves with Spahlinger vaccines was made by officers of the Ulster Government, stated a London message of October 1. The report stated that the vaccine highly immunised vaccinated calves to a lethal dose of tubercle bacilli and conferred equal immunity to intense natural infection for approximately two years. Experiments would be continued to discover the minimum dose sufficient to confer immunity. Following the experiment, the "Daily Telegraph" demanded the adoption by Britain of the use of vaccine, recalling that a committee of experts last year pointed out that the milking life of the British cow was only half what it should-be, in reality causing an annual loss of £3,000,000, while 40 per cent, of the dairy cows were badly infected with tuberculosis. Over 5 per cent, of milk samples from individual herds were dangerous. Bovine tuberculosis had caused 2500 deaths of human, beings and much illness annually. The British Medical Association in 1926 demanded proof that Spahlinger's vaccine immunised animals. This, said the "Telegraph," was now provided. Major W. Elliot, Minister of Agriculture, and Mr. Kingsley Wood, Minister of Health, must take up the matter, or they would be remembered as the champions of vested prejudice and blind obstructionists in resisting one of the most salutary discoveries.