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The report of the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis has just been
presented to Parliament. The terms of the inquiry were : " What administrative
measures are available and would be desirable for checking the
danger to man through the use, as food, of the meat and milk of tuberculous
animals; —what are the considerations which should govern the action
of the responsible authorities in condemning, for the purpose of food,
supplies, carcasses, or meat exhibiting any stage of tuberculosis."
The Commissioners express the strongest opinion in favour of public
over private slaughter-houses, and recommend that local authorities should
have power, when once a public slaughter-house has been established, to
declare that no other place shall be used for slaughtering purposes; they say
that " the use of public slaughter-houses in populous places, to the exclusion
of all private ones, is a necessary preliminary to a uniform and equitable
system of meat inspection."
They would require a meat inspector to pass an examination in the
subject of meat inspection, but they would not insist that he should be a
veterinary surgeon.
With regard to the condemnation of the meat of tuberculous animals,
they propose that when the disease is localised the carcass should be passed,
and should only be condemned when the disease is generalised. On the
most important question of the milk supply, they comment on the lack of
powers possessed by local authorities to control the danger to man from the
sale of milk of tuberculous animals, even when the udder is diseased, and
recommend that facilities such as those given in certain local Acts, with the
view of preventing the sale of tuberculous milk, shall be provided in an
extended form, and they also advise that all diseases of the udder and all
cows which exhibit outward symptoms of tuberculosis shall be notified,
and urge the Board of Agriculture to assist farmers in eliminating the
disease by manufacturing and offering a supply of " Tuberculin" for
diagnostic purposes, together with the services of a veterinary surgeon,
gratuitously.