Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the president of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to enquire into foot-and-mouth disease.

  • Great Britain. Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. Foot-and-Mouth Disease Committee.
Date:
1912
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the president of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries to enquire into foot-and-mouth disease. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    38/370 (page 14)
    25 January 1912.] [ Continued, is more a veterinary question, but I think you will find Mr. Stockman will say that he is satisfied he can diagnose the disease. : 161. Just one more question: You told us in the Edinburgh case, I think it was, that the -bacillus had existed three months in the hay. I see the restriction is always removed about a month, or just after.a month, after an outbreak has taken place in each of these cases P—Yes, because the life of the disease in the open, after the animals are dead, is not of long dura- tion. It was something quite new to find that, in the exceptional circumstances of possibly damp _ hay, it might live so long as three months. There were some circumstances in connection with that importation of hay which kept the infection alive longer than ever had been supposed was possible in the veterinary profession. At the same time we have equal experience in the other direction as regards open pastures, and constantly pas- tures have been re-stocked after diseased animals have been in them. We have kept the animals under veterinary observation for weeks afterwards and never had a recurrence of the disease, not even where we re- stocked a building which had been disinfected. 162. (Major Dunne.) It is quite clear, is it not, that no animals are allowed to land from any foreign country in which we know that foot-and-mouth disease is in any way rampant?—The Board would at once prohibit the landing of animals, even for slaughter, from any such country. 163, After a certain time a foreign country may claim, may it not, that it is clear of infection P—It may make representations. 164, It may make representations. What steps would the Board, or would the Government take to ascertain whether that was the case or not P—Well, they would have to satisfy themselves as regards that country, not only that the disease had been stamped out, but that the conditions of Section 25 of the Act were fulfilled. 165. We should have to depend very much upon the bona-fides of the country concerned ?—Obviously. 166. We cannot take any actual practical steps ourselves; we must rely entirely on what they say, that the area of the country is clear of infection P—We rely on that, and also on the lapse of time. Ido not think that the Board would ever withdraw restrictions until the lapse of a period of something like six months. That has been the generally accepted rule. Where the country has been clear of disease for six months, and where all the other conditions are fulfilled the restriction might be withdrawn. That was, in fact, the course followed in connection with Argentina in the year 1902, I think it was, and, in fact, the disease again appeared in that country within three months ; then the prohibition was again imposed, 167. You told us that so far as you personally are concerned you cannot offer to the Committee any fur- ther restrictions or safeguards in connnection with the infection or a spread of the disease. Is that the opinion of the Board of Agriculture as a whole or are you only giving that opinion as your own ?—Oh, I think it may be taken as the opinion of the Board because they have taken, in fact, no further action. 168. Then. there is one small point in connection with the outbreak at Ripon in 1910. Can you give us at all what the Orders in force, asregards the cleans- ing and disinfecting of lorries are, because you men- tioned it might have beeu due to the use of the lorries or trucks ?—1910 I think you mean. 169, 1910. You could not give us what the Orders are as regards the disinfection of lorries which carry heads and so on?—There are no Orders, 170. There are no Orders P—No; I have suggested, as a possible further safeguard, some Order requir- ing the disinfection of vans and lorries carrying heads. 171, And even of railway trucks, too ?—And even possibly railway trucks, if it is practicable. 172. We all know that cake continually coming, not in bags, but loose in trucks: If those trucks have been carrying hides and have not been disinfected there is a certain amount of possibility, I suppose, of the one being transferred to the other through the cake and so to the animal ?—There is a certain possi- bility of it. I should personally think that the risk taken over a series of years must be very small, and the cost and inconvenience connected with any method of disinfection would be a very large one, and the Com- mittee would have to balance the one against the other in considering whether it would be wise to re- commend any steps of that kind as an additional pre- caution. 173. (Mr. Bathurst, M.P.) From your figures, these outbreaks used to take place at intervals of two to three or four years. Have you any reason to sup- pose that there is anything to be founded on that fact, that it is an intermittent disease with certain more or less definite influence P—I did not know that I had conveyed that suggestion in my _ evidence. ae was a period of six years between 1894 and 174. Apart from that, I notice that there are intervals of from two to three or four years between the outbreaks that you first mentioned ?—Oh, in the earlier years. 175. Yes?—I should say as regards that, that there is no very strong evidence that the disease had really been eliminated during that period. 176. Do you happen to know whether in those in- tervals the disease was prevalent abroad P—I could not say. _ 177. Are the more serious of our outbreaks here simultaneous with the most serious outbreaks abroad ? —I think, speaking generally, they are; that when- ever the disease is really very rife—to use a Scotch ex- pression—on the Continent we are more likely to get it in here. I notice in the Report for 1892, for instance, it is stated that the disease was very preva- lent on the Continent at that time, and again it was very prevalent, I think, in the year 1900, when we got the other severe outbreak of disease in which the infection was probably introduced several times during 1900 and 1901. 178. It seems to me to be a matter of some. impor- tance; do you happen to know whether between the years 1902 and 1908, when we enjoyed immunity, there was very serious disease abroad ?—I have not got the figures for the disease abroad, but I know that the disease became more prevalent abroad last year when this further outbreak occurred. 179. But, you will admit that that is an important matter in seeking for the source of the disease to ascer- tain whether it does in fact exist abroad when we have serious outbreaks here, or vice versa ?—I think it would be quite an important matter, but the foreign statistics, at any rate in the more remote days, are very difficult to get; and even at the present time they are rather difficult to bring into any uniform table, because it would very much depend upon how the country deals with their particular statistics. I think you yourself in Parliament have asked questions on that subject, and it has been explained that we are not fully informed as to the method in which the statistics are prepared, and we are now at the present time trying to get further information on this point. 180. As a matter of fact, is the disease exception- ally prevalent on the Continent at the present time P— Certainly. : 181. Compared with previous periods of serious out- break ?—It certainly is very much more prevalent on the Continent now than it has been for the last, we will say, four or five years. The statistics of disease abroad for other periods I have not got with me, but I have gathered information from the Reports. 182. Can you say what are the countries where it is most seriously prevalent to-day ?—It is very prevalent, I know, in France, in Germany, in Belgium, and in Holland, and it has now been extending latterly in Denmark, that is to say in practically all the countries bordering on the English Channel and the North Sea, which are now more or less seriously affected with foot-and-mouth disease; whereas if you were to take the figures of a couple of years ago, you will find that is not the case. France at that time was for the first