CONTROL AND SUPPRESSION OF ANIMAL DISEASES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2164, 15 August 1895, Page 4

CONTROL AND SUPPRESSION OF ANIMAL DISEASES.

The intimate connection between the comparatively recent advances in bacteriological science and practice, and their relations to diseases of animals transmissible to mankind, have attached a prominent and special importance to the subject of ailments of live stock, whether cantagious or hereditary.

It is now too late in the day to contend that the danger of animal d'seases being csmmunicated to man by the consumption of food derived from diseased animals is bo remote as to be disregarded. The question has been exhaustively discussed by medical men, veterinarian?, and agriculturists at the annual session* of the International Congress of Hygiene, and all have been in agreement as to the necessity for an efficient system of meat and milk inspection, and of inhibiting the sale

of articlts suspected to be dangerous. la tho rourse of the discussions it was pointed cub that the measures adopted for the protection of the health of the communities by several continental Governments have been attended with most satisfactory results, and that these regulations are modelled on the experiences gained from the beneficent working of the Hebrew religious legislation, as regards meat and milk, on tho heath and physique of the Jews. In Germany, France, and Belgium the regulations affecting importations of meat prescribe efficient bacteriological inspection of carcases when slaughtered, ' and as there is not the slightest probability of any .relaxation of these laws, any development of a trade in meats— whether fresh, salteJ, or canned — with the countries nvmed must be in conformity with the conditions stipulated — viz., expert microscopic inspection guaranteed by the Government authorities of the exporti»g country.

It has been argued that these several edicts are based on political and international considerations pure and simple, and thai tho power of the agricultural classes in the countries which have promulgated them is so much in the ascendant that the law makers have to give them some recognition even ab the expense of taxing the domestic conaumer. But the subject has been discussed from the point of view of those engaged in practical agriculture, from that of skilled veterinarians (British and foreign), and lastly from the side of the scientific hygienist and medical officer of health ; and it is worthy of note that all are in agreement that what is best for the community at large is also undoubtedly beat for the interest of stock-breeders and of agriculturists generally—in o^her words, that the restrictive regulations imposed in connection with the health of thn human community, which have materially lowered the death rate, should, when applied to the breeding, rearing, and preparation of animals for market, be equally successful, and that the, diminished death rate or disease rate must necessarily be followed by a corresponding increase in the< value and food-producing power of farm live alock.

Afc a session ef the Congress of Hygiene, held some three or four years ago, Professor Brown, of the Royal Veterinary College, London, gave an exceedingly interesting demonstration en "Animal Parasites." The demonstration included specially prepared and mounted specimens of trematode worms, the ordinary liver flake in the embryo state and in its adult form ; various forms of tapeworms in their stages of development, and in the forms met with in the human subject, in shesp, dogs, &c. ; nematode worm", usually termed round or thread worms, especially those forms found in the digestive canal and in muscles, and also the whip worm, the worm of trichinous pork, &c. At the same sitting of the congress Professor Eailliet, of Alfort, gave an account of the " Parasites Transmissible from Animals to Man." After dividing these parasites into animal and vegetable, and external and internal, and the external parasites into temporary and stationary, the Professor said that the internal parasites are nearly all stationary. -Borne common to man and animals, or living more especially in animals— such as the Trichina spiralis of measly pork — m*y ba developed in man through the consumption of tho fksh. of pigs affected with, the disease. Others of these internal parasites are compelled to penetrate into the organism of man in order to complete their life history, «o that they are usually transmitted direct — as, for example, the common tapeworm — but indirect transmission may take place through the medium of food, or of water which animals have polluted or infected by depositing ova or embryos. In the latter two kinds are found — those in which the parasites, living in the a<su't (state in animals, are capable of attaining the same state in man, as with the common liver fluke ; and those which, living in an adult state in animals (such as in forms of worm common to dogs), only develop in the larval stage (hydatid cyst 3) in the human subject. Too frequently direct transmission is brought about by the congumption of the flesh of infected animals, in which case the parasites living in the larval state in animals become developed into their adult- form in man, fes in the case of the

tapeworms of measly pork and beef and in fh« Trichina spiralis of trichinous pork and beef.

With the progress of knowledge among communities of the risk to public health incurred by the consumption of meat or other products derived from unsound animals, tho insistence of the German, French, and Belgian Governments on authoritative guarantees of the whob sonoencss of imports is not surprising, and doubtless the example will be followed by other importiug nations. Already in the United Kingdom demands have been made for similar legislation, and doubtless they will bo acceded to.

la reference to the report of the Commission on Tuberculosis an influential Engluh journal Bays :—": — " We have to consider that tuberculosis cannot usually be detected in the dressed carcase, nor in the milk can, nor in baiter and cheese, and that therefore, whatever safeguards and inspection we insist upon in this country, foreign and colonial meat, butter, cheese, and milk will always remain outside the scopo of our inspectors and their safeguards." Ib is therefore very probable th%t similar regulations to those in fores in the continental countries named concerning importations of meat will be at no distant date enforced in Great Britain and Ireland.

In order to extend their continental trade In meat exporters in the United States have conformed to the conditions affectiDg imports of ineab prescribed on the Continent. Tho idea of Government microscopic inspection of the carcases of all animals slaughtered in the States for export was primarily brought forward and approved by the Department of Agriculture as a necessary guarantee which would secure facilities for the transaction of business with the Continent, and so much importance is attached to the system that it is now regarded as essential to the maintanance o? trade— lecal, interStates, and for. ign. For some unexplained reasons New York was exempted from the operation of the system, and the exporters m that city complain loudly that by the lack of inspection they have sustained a specific loss in being forced to sell their products at 10 to 15 per cent, below inspected meats, and that whatever share of French and German trade belongs to New York by virtue of its geogra- , phical facilities, as well as the suitability and variety of the materials for disposal, musk pass from them in toto and be transferred to the We.-tern States, where microscopic inspection is provided for. The necessity for the adoption of a system of official microscopic inspection as a guarantee of the soundness of meats for export, and even those for local consumption, is - now recognised generally in Australia ; and tin ugh it may be claimed for our cattle herds in this colony that they are exceptionally im- "• muno from disease, simple assertion of the - fact, unsupportid by guaranteed inspection similar to that in vogue in other exporting countries, will, fail to allay tho suspicions 7 of purchasers in the Home or continental matkets.