Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals.
- Great Britain. Royal Commission on Tuberculosis
- Date:
- 1898
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.
99/502 (page 59)
![might go further and say that, if the milk were taken undiluted with milk from other cows, it would be a very certain method of infecting the individual. To show that that is not mere theorising, I might mention that, within the last 12 mouths, I was asked to exa- mine a sample of milk from a diseased udder with a view to diagnosis. I had no difficulty in detecting tubercle bacilli in it, and, to my horror, I learnt a week or two afterwards that the milk from that cow was still being sent for sale into the adjoining city. 1230. Have you any reason to suppose that that was an exceptional case ?—I do not think that is exceptional. 1231. Have you any suggestions as to the safe- guards or means of prevention that might be adopted ? —I think that the evidence justifies us in believing that there is no danger from the milk except when the disease is actually present in the udder itself. I do not think that a cow with a tuberculous lesiou in the lung, and with the lesions confined to the lungs would yield milk at all dangerous. I cannot conceive that the milk would be dangerous in such a case. That minimises the danger to a certain extent, because there is not one cow in a hundred that is the subject of tuberculosis that ever gets the disease in the mammary gland. 1232. When it is in the udder, do you say it is easily detected?—The disease cannot exist in the udder for any length of time without attracting the attention of the person milking the cow, because it leads to induration of the gland, and, in the course of time, to a very considerable enlargement of it. In that way it has characters that enable veterinary surgeons to distinguish this form of mammary in- flammation from almost any other. But there is a distinct danger connected with it in this Avay, that while the milker would be sure to recognise that there was some disease in the quarter, he might attach no importance to it because, for some considerable time after there is a manifest hardening of the udder, the milk may continue to be perfectly normal in appear- ance, and also not appreciably diminished in quantity, notwithstanding the fact that, when tested at that time, it is found to contain the germs. I think that the present danger would be considerably reduced if ill milch cows were submitted to veterinary inspec- tion at intervals. Unfortunately, that would be rather expensive, because such a method of inspection is of little or no value unless the intervals are rather frequent; if the inspection were made at longer intervals than two or three weeks, then it would not be a very reliable safeguard, for in less than two or three weeks a tuberculous inflammation of the mammary gland might develop into quite a dangerous con- dition. I would suggest that it should be made penal for any person to sell milk from an udder that is manifestly diseased in any form. 1233. In your opinion, might that disease be easily recognized by any person working the stock or by any person connected with dairy stock ?—Of course the thing must start from a point of disease of microscopic size, and then it would not be detect- able; but it must soon attain such a size as would make it detectable; and as a matter of fact in every case that is discovered by veterinary surgeons, the person milking it has known that there was something wrong with the quarter for some considerable time before. 1234. Would it be necessary to employ a veterinary inspector ?—I think so. 1235. The last witness described the system in Liverpool which, in his opinion, was efficient, under which shippons, byres, or lairs were placed under the inspection of inspectors who were not qualified as veterinary surgeons but were technically instructed ? —My experience of these men is that they are extremely ignorant. To me it seems a perfectly irrational system to depute the inspection of animals with the object of detecting disease to any other class of men than veterinary surgeons ; as irrational as it would be to set a sanitary inspector to examine human beings with a view to the detection of cholera or Prof. J. scarlatina or anything of that sort. McFadyean, 1236. As a practical question, if you were to M'p 'i> B, ^e employ veterinary surgeons to inspect every cow * throughout the country once in three weeks, the 27 xov ]8% expense would be prohibitive. You have already told us that tuberculous disease in the udder is easily recognized by anyone milking the cow; would it not be possible to have inspectors sufficiently instructed for that particular purpose?—What I said was that it was impossible for the disease to exist for any considerable length of time without its attracting the attention of the milker. I did not mean to say that the milker would recognise it as a tuberculous inflammation of the udder. What I said was that tuberculous inflammation of the udder has characters by which veterinary surgeons can distinguish it from other forms of inflammation. I admit that it might be possible to take an intelligent man and train him with reference to this one point, just as it would be possible to take a man who has had no education in human medicine and educate him in the diagnosis of cholera or scarlatina. But I do not think that is advisable, and I do not think it would be a very reliable safeguard for the public. Of course, lay inspectors might be employed to detect disease of the udder in any form—they might be deputed to ascertain whether all the cows whose milk is being sold have, as far as can be ascertained by them, healthy udders; then supposing there were a case of disease discovered, I think that would be a case to submit to a veterinary surgeon. 1237. How many cows could a lay inspector examine in a single day ?—If they were all in con- nected premises, I should think that he might with- out difficulty examine 60 in an hour. 1238. Sixty in an hour ?—A minute's examination is quite sufficient to ascertain with moderately quiet cows whether the mammary gland is healthy to the touch or not, and in regard to size and so on. 1239. It would be a hard hour's work, would it not ?—I think I have inspected more than 60 myself in an hour. Again I might say that I am not theorising, because I examined for the Royal Com- mission on a previous occasion 1,800 cows, particularly with reference to the state of their udders. 1240. Do you think that inspection—prevention in short — is better than any form of cure, such as sterilizing milk ?—No. I think that steaming the milk is the best of all precautions. I do not care what steps may be taken in this country short of the absolute eradication of tuberculosis from cattle; I should not allow any child of mine to consume un- cooked milk. That is a precaution which is inexpen- sive and absolutely certain. 1241. Turning to the other branch of the subject to which that precaution is applied, namely, meat— have you any observations to offer for our guidance in that ? In the first place, I believe you hold some views about private slaughter-houses?—That ques- tion, I think, is connected with the present inquiry in this way, that so far as safeguarding the public is concerned, it is absolutely unimportant whether the Commission decides that this class of flesh is safe and that class is dangerous, unless there is instituted the machinery to detect the carcases that are dangerous. It is no use declaring that such and such a degree of tuberculosis in cattle renders the flesh dangerous to the consumer, as long as there is an almost unlimited facility for a butcher to slaughter an animal so affected and place its carcase on the market. There- fore, I think that this is really part of the general question of the inspection of meat, I think, that not only through the bearing of tuberculosis ou human health, but through the bearing of other diseases, the public ought to be safeguarded by skilled inspection of slaughtered animals. That I suppose would be next to impossible in any place where there; are private slaughter-houses—I mean, that in a city of any size with private slaughter-houses, skilled inspec- tion of the slaughtered animals is next to impossible,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21365076_0099.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
