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
Catalogue details

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.

    54/370 (page 30)
    9° 26 January 1912. ] [ Continued, But I do not careevenif they did it from the first. Ido not think that a multiplicity of administrations in deal- ing with contagious disease is anything like so good as a central administration, and I do not know any country without a central administration that has ever stamped out anything. 495. Well, now, Mr. Stockman, what country is there which acts on the same lines as we do, to a certain extent? I understood you to say there were one or two countries took our regulations ?—Denmark does as regards foot-and-mouth disease; Holland has re- cently begun to. 496, You sayin Denmark there are only 45 cases P— Yes, and they kept itout for a very long time. 497. What other country ?—Holland. I have had conferences with the Dutch authorities, the veterinary and the agricultural. I had one perhaps a month or six weeks ago. We had some discussion with them about the 1908 outbreak. They came over and inquired even into our diagnosis, and I had a discussion with them then about stamping-out measures. They did not think much of it as a practicable measure, but Isee by looking at the law that for several years they have had the power to slaughter and pay compensation. In this last outbreak they have been doing it, and they have been doing it well to this extent: they do not throw up the sponge when the disease spreads; they go on slaughtering, and itis not until, by common consent, the disease has got out of hand in a district and the slaughter will mean ruin to the milk and meat trade, that theystop. They then isolate that district, and they go on slaughtering in other newly infected districts. They told me that at that time they had spent no less than 50,000/.in compensation, and they were very pleased with the results. I put it to them, “Are you pleased with the results?” and they said they were. I saw in one of our official papers, and I just noted it before I came down here this morning, that in October 1911 they had 4,391 outbreaks in Holland, whereas in November they had only 1,089. Now, if you compare that with any of the other countries, most of the other countries show an increase, so far as my recollection goes. Of course, they had a very different proposition to us, with 4,000 outbreaks, to deal with by slaughter; it shows a great deal of courage to tackle it inthat way. Although it has not been stamped out, the fact remains that in November they had gone down to 1,089 new outbreaks, from 4,391 in October, Then, as regards France, they have a similar arrangement to Germany, but they had no organised department for dealing with contagious diseases until 1909. In spite of all their scientific knowledge and all that they have suffered from disease, it was in 1909 that they organised a complete sanitary service; but there again there are too many organisa- tions. The Minister of Agriculture, too, I think, is advised by about 20 people. I do not see how he can ever know whose advice to take or how to act in a press- ing emergency. They have departmental veterinary surgeons in every geographical department, and they are acting practically as if we handed over foot-and- mouth disease entirely to the county authorities and gave them each an administration. 498. Then I may take it, Mr Stockman, from you that there has been no friendly communication at all with any of the foreign Boards of Agriculture on this question; that it has never been mooted to them to take common action with ourselves as regards this disease ?—Not to my knowledge. 499. (Mr. Field, M.P.) Not officially P—Not offici- ally. 500. (Chairman.) That is what I mean, not offici- ally >—There has been a great deal of talk about it in veterinary circles. 501. It has all come to nothing ?—Well, you can devise and pass resolutions, and never hear anything about them. 502. (Six J. Bowen-Jones.) I want to know whether your opinion is the same as Mr. Anstruther’s. He gave evidence yesterday that our,Acts of Parliament and Orders-in-Council in connectioh with them are suf- ficient to make us immune from the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease from live animals brought into the ports in our ships P—Well, you mean to destroy all ordinary risk. 503. Are those Acts and Regulations sufficient to render the country immune P—Oh, I think so, so far as Acts can. I do not think that any further powers would help us much. 504. No, but do they do it 2—Well, my view is that no Act of this kind will do anything, or no Order, It is the administration of it andthe activity of the officers who have to carry it out. 505. But are those regulations and laws effectual in preventing live animals that come into our ports bring- ing in disease P—Yes. 506. They are?—Oh, I think so. 507. That was Mr. Anstruther’s opinion too and it is mine.—Oh yes, I am quite satisfied of that. 508. Well then, you discard the idea that this disease is spontaneous, that it can arise of itself in this country P—Yes. 509. Entirely P—Yes. o10, And I think the usual opinion is that the origin of this and most other diseases, like the wise men of old, come from the East, is it not ?—I havea note on that. The first description of the disease that we have on record was by Michael Sagar in Moravia in 1764. Now, of course, it must have been in existence before 1764, but it is not one of the diseases which we have been able to trace back even to the early days of the Christian era; the history of it apparently, as far as I can see, has been lost. 511. There is no tradition as to where it came from ? —No, but it is quite true, of course, that most of our plagues have come from the Kast. It is also true, of course, that we are now sending one or ie diseases there that they did not. have before. 512, We are returning the oomvelineon? Well, disease must have an origin somewhere. Mind you, the little I know about veterinary subjects is the one bit I learned off the late Professor Brown. ‘The disease must have an origin. Of course, I have always accepted the theory that most of these diseases, like rinderpest, have come from the Russian Steppes?—There is no doubt about that in the case of rinderpest. 513. The disease’ must have begun some time P—Yes. 514, Why should it arise there; why should it take a concrete form in those parts, more than it should in England now ?—Well, that, of course, is a very difficult question; itis going back to the creation. But I might give you some information about rinderpest from my experience in India. 515. From a scientific point of view, it is very in- teresting to hear your opinion on this?—IJn India, if you saw cattle plague, and even if you saw foot-and- mouth disease, you might not recognise it. Those of you who remember the fatal character of cattle plague in this country will be rather surprised to hear that in India I inoculated 80 animals before I got a typical case of the disease and before I got a death, and I haye known of hundreds of animals inoculated with the virus and they have had only a very slight attack. You would not diagnose it. You might even walk through the herd and you would not even know that the stock were ill. The same applies to foot-and-mouth disease there. The reason of it is this, that it has been so long in the country that a large number of animals have got immune to it, That is how cattle plague first got into Europe. In the Russian Steppes, which con- tact with the East, cattle plague has existed for many years. The cattle are highly immune to the disease, and may show little more than an indisposition when attacked. The cattle that came from Russia and brought it westward were not recognised as ill, but when they were put into contact with the susceptible and virgin soil of the animals in the West, the western animals began to die like flies. Well, that, of course, is well known in regard to other diseases. We took measles out to the Fiji Islands and it has nearly exter- minated the inhabitants. Cholera in India is of com- paratively little account, but when it comes here, of course we know what happens. Tuberculosis: we have all got pretty immune to tuberculosis here, but if you take it out to the natives of India and some of the African natives it is another matter—in fact, they