[Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City.

  • Sheffield (England). City Council.
Date:
1937
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1937] / Medical Officer of Health, Sheffield City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    193/208 (page 189)
    Tuberculosis Order of 1925. Under this Order certain forms of bovine tuberculosis are notifiable. Cases are brought to light by the routine inspection with concomittant post-clinical herd sampling of dairy herds by this Department and to a lesser degree by notification by owners or attendant Veterinary Surgeons. Provision is made in the Order for the payment of compensation to the owners of the slaughtered animals. Three tpiarters of the agreed value is given if the disease is “ not advanced ” and a quarter if the disease is “ advanced.” As this Order is usually worked as a corollary to the Milk and Dairies Acts and Orders it is deemed more appropriate to consider it in the milk section of this report and the details are to be found on pages 200 and 201. Swine Fever. A considerable amount of work was done in connection with this disease. Pigs are kept by city farmers and in addition many allotment holders buy stores for fattening. Stores are bought at markets in Sheffield, and adjacent towns such as Doncaster, and Worksop, and it is among these “ market pigs ” that the highest incidence of Swine Fever is found. Owners are in the habit of reporting to this Department all deaths occurring in pigs from unknown causes and post-mortem examinations of the carcases are conducted in every case. This method combined with the routine inspection of all live pigs on licence under the Regulation of Movement of Swine Order and the post-mortem examination of all pigs killed at the public Abattoir and private slaughterhouses gives an early opportunity of detecting the disease should it exist. Post-mortem examinations for the possible presence of Swine Fever were conducted on 179 pigs. Swine Fever was suspected in 12 cases and specimens of the viscera were forwarded to the Ministry’s laboratory for confirmatory diagnosis. The disease was con¬ firmed in 9 cases representing 9 different premises and involving a total of 242 pigs. In addition, movement restrictions were imposed on 10 “adjoining” premises involving 112 pigs. Of the confirmed cases 7 were discovered as a result of the deaths of the animals being reported and the remaining 2 were found during the examination of slaughtered pigs in the ordinary course of meat ins])ection at the Abattoir. These 2 cases were connected with premises outside the City boundary. Regulation of Movement of Swine Order. The major provision of this Order is that all swine which are exposed for sale at markets in England and Wales (with the exception of a few parts) are thereafter subject to detention and isolation for a period of 28 days after leaving the market. Systematic visits were paid to all premises receiving swine under licence with the double object of seeing that the conditions of the licence were being fulfilled and to maintain observation for the early detection of Swine Fever if it existed. In this connection 199 visits to pig-keepers’ premises respecting 11,259 pigs were made. In addition licences were issued under the Order for the movement of 22,248 fat pigs for slaughter and 1,548 store pigs to other premises.