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Otago Daily Times, Issue 19239, 1 August 1924, Page 6

/ THE problem of anthrax. During the past few weeks there have been various cablegrams relating to the consideration of the problem of anthrax by the International Labour Conference meeting at Geneva.. Apparently the Conference was unable to reach any agreement respecting international pro cedure with a view to coping with the disease, and the discussion ended with a decision that no action should be taken. An endeavour to secure international co-operation through the League of Nations with a view to stamping out anthrax is in itself testimony to the groat importance attached to the question, and it is unfortunate that differences of opinion respecting remedial and precautionary measures should apparently be operating against the attainment of the desired objective. From the United States this week come reports of a bad outbreak of anthrax which is playing sad havoc among the stock in the States of Arkansas, Tennessee, and Mississippi. It is said that the disease has been communicated with fatal results to a score of persons. The precautionary measures that are being instituted by State and Federal officials indicate how serious a matter the visitation is considered for the regions affected. Anthrax is a disease primarily of animals, affecting cattle, horses, and sheep. Human beings catch the disease from animals —only very rarely from one another—and it is in occupations that bring them into contact with cattle, and sheep, and horses that the disease usually occurs. Members of the general population rarely contract it, but the fact is recalled that in 1015 a serious outbreak occurred in England following the introduction of infected shaving brushes from Japan. The mortality rate during that epidemic rose as high as 63.6 per cent. Distributed in a widespread manner the disease is most familiar in Europe and Central Asia—Russia and Siberia being particularly affected—and is prevalent to some extent in Egypt and Central America. Historically it was known to the ancients. As the disease is primarily one of animals it is manifest that to stamp it out by veterinary measures would eliminate the danger it constitutes to man. But while a country is often able to control the anthrax which occurs among its own animal population, a more serious problem arises in the question of the introduction of infected wool, hides, or horsehair from outside sources. The problem of the conveyance of such infected material is international in its scope, and it is not for want of giving it attention that the International Labour Office has not yet found the solution. The situation, it is pointed out, is a rather delicate one: certain countries have established a reputation for particular classes of wool, and the introduction of compulsory washing and other disinfecting measures would, in a small proportion of cases, render the necessary special sorting impossible. Opinion has been divided as to the expediency of disinfection in the case r.f wool comiiur from infected regions

taking place at tho port of embarkation or at tho port of destination, and the disagreement generally respecting the handling of suspected material has been reflected in the discussions at Geneva. The British delegation’s advocacy of compulsory disinfection of wool recalls the fact of the opening of the Government wool-disinfecting station at Liverpool in 1921, a result of the measures thus given application being, it is reported, that only three cases of anthrax occurred in Bradford in 1923, the incidence of the disease being actually higher in districts outside the town in which the large majority of cases had previously always occurred. There seems no particular reason to doubt that, given international and national enterprise on the right lines, the dangerous scourge of anthrax might be attacked with distinct hope of its eventual elimination.