PURER HERDS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXL, Issue 20283, 5 December 1935, Page 10

PURER HERDS

REPORT ON SPAHLINGER VACCINE United Press Association—By Electrlo Telegraph—Copyright (Received December 4, 7.40 p.m.) LONDON, December 3. The joint committee of the Medical and Agricultural Research Councils, reporting on the Spahlinger test, says: “We suggest that a thorough test be made in England but, until it is shown that the vaccine is effective against natural as well as experimental methods of infection, a practical application would be deferred. The number of animals Spahlinger used in his tests was insufficient to give conclusive results.” A report on experiments made on calves with the Spahlinger vaccine was made on October 1 by officers of the Ulster Government. The report stated that the vaccine highly immunised vaccinated calves to a lethal dose of

tubercle bacilli arid conferred equal immunity to intense natural infection for approximately two years. The experiments would be continued to discover the minimum dose sufficient to confer immunity. Following the Spahlinger experiment, “The Daily Telegraph” demanded the adoption by Britain of the use of the vaccine, recalling that a committee of experts last year pointed out that the milking life of the British cow was only half of what it should be in reality, causing an annual loss of £3,000,000, while 40 per cent, of the dairy cows were badly infected with tuberculosis and over 5 per cent, of milk samples from individual herds revealed dangerous bovine tuberculosis, which caused 2500 deaths of human beings and much illness yearly. The British Medical Association in 1926 demanded proof that Spahlinger’s vaccine immunised animals, and this had now been provided. Mr Walter Elliot (Minister of Agriculture) and Sir Kingsley Wood (Minister of Health) must take up the matter or they would be remembered as the champions of vested prejudice and blind obstructionists, resisting one of the most salutary discoveries. Injections in calves consisted of 100,000,000 bacilli.