SANITARY INSTITUTE.

Evening Star, Issue 9835, 25 October 1895, Page 1

SANITARY INSTITUTE.

A meeting of the above lustitute was held in the Council Chambers last evening to hear a paper read by Mr S. S. Cameron (inspector of abattoirs) on ' Animal Diseases Communicable to Man.' Mr A. Burt was in the chair, and all the sitting accommodation available for the public was taken up, while others'had to stand.

Dr Fulton, Mr Garden Watson, and Miss Browning were elected members of the lustitute.

Mr S. S. Camerok, M.R.C.V.S., said that ever-increasing attention was beinglpaid by pathologists to the relationship of human and animal diseases, and, apart from what was simply surmised, their investigations prove conclusively that certain diseases in each are absolutely identical, and that some in man are wholly dependent on the intervention of animals. The prevalence of hydatid disease in Australasia furnished a strikingly affirmative answer to the question whether animals are at all responsible for human diseases. For, excepting Iceland, where dog's flesh iB eaten, hydatid disease is more common in the colonies of Australasia than in any country in the world. According to Mr Hayter, for the twenty-five years previous to 1887, there were over 900 deaths reported from hydatid disease in Victoria alone, farmers and bush hands being those mostly affected, indicating that those who drink out of exposed waterholes, etc., in the back country run a very appreciable risk of contracting the disease.

Another serious disease of man was trichinosis, which was a disease caused by the presence in the body of a parasitic worm called the Trichina spiralis, derived from the flesh of the pig mainly. This parasite is extremely virile, and it has been found alive and active after being preserved for twentyfive years. Smoking and pickling the pork, as ordinarily practised, killed only the surface trichina!, but a temperature of lpOdeg centigrade proved fatal. Thus, thorough cooking is a reliable preventive of infection ; but in Germany and some other Continental countries* owing to the habit of eating meat practically raw, the disease in man is very common. It was now estabished that many cases, and even epidemics, variously described as rheumatics, typhus, poisoning, English sweat, and black death, were really instances of this disease in man, in whom, unfortunately, the parasite might exist in both mature and immature states the former in the intestines, the latter in the muscles. The speaker then referred to other diseases which man shared with the lower animals, such as diphtheria, scarletina, influenza, and various variolas. Two other cqmmon and serious diseases of stock, anthrax and actinorayebosis, were readily transmissible to man. Anthrax, judging by recent discoveries made by Messrs Gilruth and Charlton, the Government veterinarians, was getting a firm hold of stock in some parts of New Zealand. Actinomychosis was a disease about which a great deal of misconception existed. . It was commonly termed "cattle cancer" or " lumpy jaw." But, while it was not true cancer, it was equally malignant and dangerous, and, unfortunately, it was becoming extremely common amongst cattle in all countries. Although it had until within recent years been seldom recognised in man, leading pathologists deemed it highly probable that a number of cases of this disease were yearly mistaken for curious bone disorders, tubercular lung affections, cancer of the stomach, bowels, etc. That the disease was easily transmissible by partaking of affected beef or milk, and that the lesion it produced was easily mistaken for any of the above diseases was beyond doubt. Under those circumstances it would not be very reassuring to his audience to learn that during the last fortnight, whilst inspecting certain of the dairy cattle from which the milk supply of Dunedin residents is drawn, he had come across at least two well-marked cases of this loathsome disease Mr Cameron went on to lay particular stress on the danger arising to man from tuberculosis, "the disease which is responsible for one-sixth (14 per cent.) of all deaths in civilised countries, which kills one-fourth ('25 per cent.) of all who die under one year old, nearly one-half (50 per cent.) of all who die during the marriageable ages, and a very large number of "the aged also ; the disease, too, which is the greatest single cause of death in Australasia, and is, unfortunately, already as prevalent in these new lands as iu the closely-packed centres of the Old World." He dwelt at length on its prevalence among cattle, detailed experiments made to show its communicability to man, and gave several instances of infection which had come under his own notice. Mr Cameron continued as follows:—Coming now to the prevalence of the disease in the Australasian colonies I am at a great disadvantage, for there are at present absolutely no means of ascertaining authentically the extent to which it exists. I have, however, no hesitation in saying that it is as common iu these colonies as in any part of the world, and I wish to publicly correct a false impression which obtains in some quarters to the effect that cattle kept in a semi-wild state iu the Australian bush are immune to the disease. Knowing that tuberculosis is to a certain extent a disease of domestication, spreading readily by close cohabitation, a superficial consideration would scan to support the conclusion; but careful inquiry and experience of the conditions uuder which cattle are bred and reared show that there are factors obtaining in Australia which predispose to prevalence of the disease just as much as do the close cohabitation and pampered treatment of cattle in byres in the Old World. First of all there is an equal vulnerability to the disease iuherited here as in England from purebred and diseased sires and dams, either imported or the progeny of imported stock. Then, although for the most part oattle are never housed, they always, even in large mobs, have favorite camping grounds on which they congregate at night, and which become contaminated with infected droppings and discharges. The stagnant water holes in the vicinity of these camping grounds may at any time become contaminated, and thus facilitate the spread of the disease. Mo3t important of all, however, is the fact that at least ninety of all the cattle bred in Australia are not slaughtered until they have arrived at or gone far beyond maturity. The cows are kept for breeding until eight or nine years old. Bullocks are not slaughtered until at least four years old, the average age being six. When it is remembered that tuberculosis in boviuea is a disease of maturity or old age, it will be seen that the opportunities for the spread are very great, as each animal that becomes affected as age increases acts as a fresh centre from which the disease is communicated. Abattoir statistics endorse this, as it is found that the disease is moßt common by far in bullocks up to seven, eight, and nine years old, and in old dairy cows. At the Melbourne City abattoirs the animals are subject to inspection on slaughter, and during the existence of the Board of Inquiry on Tuberculosis in Cattle in Victoria some fairly reliable statistics were obtained. On these the Board based the statement that " probably, therefore, over 7 per cent, of all cattle slaughtered for the meat supply of Melbourne are tuberculous in some degree. For the half-year ended December, 1884, of 16,780 cattle slaughtered 7.1 per cent, were affected, and the proportion has steadily increased since. It must be borne in mind, too, that only the better class of cattle is sent for slaughter to these abattoirs, all the "piners" and beasts suspected by their owners as likely to be condemned being sent to private slaughter-houses, of which there are upwards of twenty in and suburbs. Turning to dairy stock, it has long been known, aud the fact receives confirmation by the Midlothian statistics I liave quoted, that the disease prevails to a greater extent in milch cows than in other classes of stock. In these, too, the tendency to generalisation is most marked. If we take a very low estimate then, say, 7 per cent, of tuberculosis localised and generalised in dairy cows, and if we assume that danger of infection of man only exists where there is generalisation, then taking the Leipsic statistics as a standard—viz., that of every 100 cases of tuberculosis 13.8 are generalised —we arrive at the somewhat alarming fact that one in every 100 dairy cows can convey, and is conveying, tubercule infection to susceptible human beings in our midst. I ask myself : Is this known or believed?—(A Voice: "No.' 1 ) I cannot answer. I should be sorry indeed to think that if it were known to those in whose hands the conservation of thebealth of human beings is placed they should be so neglectful of their trust. Conversely, 1 ask myself : Can it be denied ? And I confidently answer No '.—(Hear, hear.) I am afraid no very satisfactory answer could be given to the question What is being done by medical scientists to ascertain all the etiological factors in the increasing prevalence of this dire scourge of humanity? With typhoid every care has been taken to ascertain the sources of infection reliably and to counteract that infection. So with scarlatina, smallpox, etc., but with tuberculosis—a disease responsible for 14 per cent, of the

whole of the deaths recorded from all sources of disease, a disease affecting all mammals and many other classes to such an extent as to be considered a likely factor in the ultimate extermination of species—what appears to be a certain source of infection w totally neglected. No adequate attempt is made to ascertain how much human tuberculosis is attributable to this source.—(Applause.) The Chairman said he could not help the idea striking him while the paper was being read that it was a wonder we were all living. —(Hear, laughter.) However, the p*per was a scientific one, aud he would not think of criticising it. Mr Cameron could doubtless prove his assertions. Dr Oooton thought the paper proved the wisdom of the Council appointing Mr Cameron to the position he occupied. He hoped Mr Cameron would have plenty to do, and that he would be encouraged in his work and not be snubbed, as generally was the fate of officials who-did their duty. He did not quite agree with Mr Cameron on the want of weight the latter laid on localised tuberculosis of the udder. To a child drinking milk unboiled from a tuberculous ndder the danger was appalling. Mr Cameron seemed to think that a local lesion was not necessarily dangerous, but it was known that tubercle Mas never curable; that it might go into abeyance, and that a person might apparently be cured of tuberculosis, and that a very slight cause might start it again, so that if tuberculous germs lodged in a person's system anywhere, that person certainly carried the seeds of death in him ; therefore no local lesion was devoid of danger. Mr Cameron had an idea that eertain people were susceptible to tubercle. That also was a fallacy. The strongest persons, under favorable circumstances, were as liable as the weak. There was no doubt that cattle were a great sonrce of danger, and the chief source of danger was milk. In the statistics of recent years, in the Guards regiment, in London (at Kuightsbridge), it was shown that by preventing overcrowding, by providing ventilation and cleanliness, the mortality in the Guards regiment was enormously reduced. The doctor pointed out that there was great need for the adoption of similar step 3 in this colony, for so long as cattle were kept overcrowded in dark and dirty byres, as they were here, so lung would tubercle be rife. He hoped Mr Cameron would find time to see that the dairies were properly looked after here and that the health of the cows was looked after. Twenty or thirty deaths occurred here every year from tuberculosis, and yet the public were so pig-headed that they would not iusist on the idea being carried out of notifying instances of tubercle. Even if we compensated people'for the diseased cattle that were destroyed, it would pay us to do it by the increased health of the population.—(Applause.) Mr W. M'Cukw, a dairyman, said that he milked over twenty cows, and as (according to Mr Cameron) 20 per cent, of these animals were afflicted with tuberculosis, he sold the milk of two tuberculous cows—an idea he did not like. He had practical knowledge of cows, and his experience proved that when cattle were afflicted with serious disease they did not live long, for which they ought to be thankful. If 20 per cent, of the milk was tuberculous, the sooner tbey knocked the trade on the head the better. He for one did not believe in taking part in the slaughter of infants.

Mr Jenkins said the number of deaths from consumption in New Zealand during the last ten yean totalled 6,927, ranging from 647 in 1888 to 752 in 1894. Mr Cameron had said little about cancer. Inquiries made by the Government showed the number of deaths last year from this cause was 408, which proved this disease to be largely on the increase.

Mr Cameron briefly replied to his critics, combating the notion that because an animal was in good condition it was necessarily in good health. With regard to Mr Jenkins's remarks about cancer, hedidnot believed that true cancer existed in animals to any extent, but actinomychosis was often mistaken for it. He was not one who believe that any great danger was to be feared from cancer. Mr Burt had said that if all these things were true it was a wonder we were all alive. Perhaps it was, but facts were incontrovertible, aud when we con* sidered that the death rate of children in Paris was reduced from 22 to 17 per cent, since dairy supervision was instituted, he thought it must be admitted that in all probability but for the supervision the other 5 per cent, would have died. Mr Gallaway, in moving a vote of thanks to Mr Cameron for his interesting paper, said it was evident that we were not giving too much attention to the question of public abattoirs.

MrH.S. Fish expressedhisgreatregret that he had not been present to hear all the paper read, but they all knew that he was busily engaged electioneering. He believed that the City Council and Dunedin people were most fortunate in having secured the services of Mr Cameron, who had given himself and the City Council sufficient evidence to justify that remark. Mr Cameron had presented an interim report to one of the committees of the Council which exposed a revolting state of things, and would almost prevent people from feeding young children on milk. What he had shown justified the appointment of Mr Cameron. Some people* said it was a waste of money to appoint an inspector at a salary of three or four hundred a year when we might have to wait a twelvemonth for our abattoirs, but if we had to wait five years there was plenty of work for Mr Cameron to do. If he (the speaker) retained his position a vigorous inspection of meat would be made, and he warned butchers to no longer oppose this reform in the mistaken belief that they would be allowed to sell in the future, as in the past, meat that was unfit for consumption. If any of them thought that they could temporarily burke the Council from establishing abattoirs from which the people of this district could obtain good and sound meat they were mistaken, for the Council could take measures to put a stop to bad meat being sold by them. The Council had opposition in this matter which was not creditable to those who had taken part in it, and he was surprised, wheu so great a question was brought up for.the benefit of the public, that there could be men amongst us eo lost to a sense of what was proper as to say there was no danger or fear of contamination from diseased meat. Could anybody be so dense as to say such a thing as that ? But, of course, they all understand that opposition to reforms of that kind emanated from those who were interested in carrying on what he thought was an improper trade, or an improper method of conducting their trade, so far as the general interests of the public were concerned. Mr M'Cuedy heartily supported the motion, saying that he must not be understood as opposing the inspection of dairies. He stated that in some letters'which he wrote to the ' Daily Times' some time ago he'proposed the appointment of a dairy inspector—an inspector of cattle; so that he could take credit for Mr Cameron being appointed inspector. The Chairman, in conveying the vote of thanks to Mr Cameron, pointed out that the matter of the inspection of frozen meat for export from the colony was engaging attention at Home, and said that it was necessary to see that that inspection was carried out if we wished the frozen meat trade to be prosperous. _