HYDATIDS SCOURGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 113, 8 November 1940, Page 5

HYDATIDS SCOURGE

NEW ZEALAND SHEEP

RARE DISEASE IN ENGLAND

NO LEFT CARCASSES

(Special to the "Evening Post.") PALMERSTON'N., This Day. The humiliating record of New Zealand in hydatids disease in sheep in comparison with countries less progressive was commented upon in an interview by Dr. E. W. Bennett, Director j of Hydatids Kesearch 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 j population —was as badly off as the Dominion. ! England had more sheep to the acre, i with one exception, than any other country, said Dr. Bennett; Rumania had more sheep per head of population, again with one exception, than any other country. The exception in both cases was New Zealand. The Domin-] ion had the world's greatest number of sheep to the square mile,' and nowhere else did the sheep population outnumber the human population by twenty to one. HUMILIATING RECORD. "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. It is the more humiliating in that we have to take the full blame for the situation in which we find ourselves. The standard in England is incomparably higher. In New Zealand our surgeons areexperts at operating for hydatids, because they have abundant practice. In England the disease is so rare that it always comes as a surprise, and 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 are referred to only as statistical entries." • ~ 3fc was not to 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 also have eradicated the disease if the problem had ever become acute. Holland and Denmark were determined to do so, and if any sheep or cattle beast was found to be infected the whole carcass was destroyed. The Dominion could not afford to do that—it would cost about five or six million lamb and mutton carcasses a year, or some £15,000. a day. A further reason for the contrast between England and New Zealand was the absurdly great dog population in the Dominion. It was second m that respect only to Uruguay, whose present dog population was one of the major handicaps in her pastoraLdeyelppment.