"IRON-STARVATTON."

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19270, 6 September 1924, Page 8

"IRON-STARVATTON."

In the August number of the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Mr B. C. Aston, the chemist to the Department, brings to a conclusion a remarkable series of investigations, extending over twenty yegrs, into the very serious North Island stock disease known as . “bush-sickness,” This, fortunately, is not one of the troubles that affect stockmen in the .southern provinces of the dominion; but its gravity over a considerable part of the other island is almost alarming, and fully justifies the extent to which it has engaged the energies of an evidently capable and earnest scientific staff. Very, early in the course of his research Mr Aston, as the result of laborious, chemical analysis of the soil, pasture plants, and parts. of the affected animals, formulated the hypothesis that the disease is due to a deficiency of iron in the blood—in fact, to what the doctors call “progressive anaemia.” Guided, however, by the true scientific spirit, which takes nothing for granted without proof, the investigator has doggedly pursued his experiments year after year unbiassed by the influence of his initial conjecture. Not content with the indications obtained ■in the laboratory, he has personally followed the victims of the malady into field, forest, and farm, and patiently studied every phase of their troubles : and the effects, for good or ill, of the modifications in nutrition and general surroundings which have been suggested by these observations as possibly beneficial, The result—that is; the determination of the cause of the trouble, which is always the most hopeful step towards its final remedy—is confidently announced by Mr Aston. “It is now advisable,” he writes, “that the misleading term 'bush-sickness’ should disappear, and be supplanted by the name ‘iron-starvation.’ The adoption of such a name would do much to bring, if not correct treatment, at least adequate general recognition of the cause of this diet-deficiency disease.” The actually best way of conveying the deficient element into the internal economy of the suffering flocks and herds is still to seek. Meanwhile, Mr Aston’s research deserves grateful recognition aa a shining example of scientific devotion to duty, and it is to be hoped that he will yet complete the good work by prescribing a successful method of curs. “The importance, of the matter to New Zealand,” Mr Aston remarks, “is shown by the fact that there is probably an • aggregate of over a million acres affected”—a state of affairs which will doubtless come as a surprising revela-, tion to the southern rural mind.