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277
[1913
(а) On two occasions your inspector's attention was called to consignments of
frozen imported ox tongues at a Meat Packing Factory, where in all 301 of the said tongues
were found to have peeled patches of the mucous membrane, in many of which it was most
difficult to understand the cause, although throughout a suspicion was felt of the probability
of its being due to Foot and Mouth Disease. In the second consignment, however, I was
able to select certain specimens which showed lesions identical with those of that disease,
which were submitted to you, and on your instruction forwarded to the Chief Food Inspector
of the Local Government Board, who forwarded them to the Royal Veterinary College, where
the Foot and Mouth Disease was recognised, and a communication made to the Board of
Agriculture, who forthwith sent Veterinary Inspector Berry of that department to enquire
into all the facts of the case. The whole of the tongues mentioned were surrendered and
conveyed to the Council's Destructor. This has led to increased vigilance on the part of
the Port Sanitary and Smithfield Market Inspectors in handling consignments of tongues
from foreign ports, and certain restrictions on the disposal of the packing litter and cases
of consignments from scheduled foreign countries have since been issued by the Board of
Agriculture.
In spite of the increased vigilance of the Smithfield Market Inspectors, in some way
or another a further lot of 24 ox tongues subsequently escaped their notice and were arrested
at the same factory and surrendered for destruction owing to a similar affection. Specimens
of these were submitted to Veterinary Inspector Young of the City Corporation, and he
agreed that the affection was such as ought to have attracted the attention of any inspector,
and concluded that the particular cases in which they were packed had escaped examination,
and undertook to make full enquiries at the Cold Stores in the City from whence the tongues
had been drawn.
(b) A pig's head and one piece of pork were found exposed for sale containing
sections of a markedly tuberculous gland. The facts of the case were reported through you
to the Public Health Committee, who resqlved, under all the circumstances, not to prosecute,
but to send a letter of caution to the butcher concerned.
(c) In one instance from information received I found two quarters of a tuberculous
pig hanging in a carrier's van in a carrier's yard in Market Road, which had been rejected
by a firm of food packers in the district, and from what transpired were evidently in course
of return to the wholesale firm in Charterhouse Street, Finsbury.
You will remember the circumstances were reported to you and submitted to tht
Council's Solicitor, who held that the meat was not liable to be seized. After telephonic
communication with Inspector Green of Finsbury, and also with the salesman who had sold
the said pork, the latter undertook, on your suggestion, to surrender the meat for destruction,
this course being adopted, and the meat ultimately destroyed at the Council's disinfecting
station.
Two other lots of diseased pork (tuberculosis) were found, the head and shoulders
of a sow pig, and the carcase ex-head of a boar pig, in both cases having certain lymphatic
glands diseased, which are not in the ordinary course of inspection available until the
carcase is cut up. They were surrendered for destruction, and the Smithfield Market
Inspectors notified of the facts although no blame appeared to rest with them under all
the circumstances.
(d) The meat and fish pastes here referred to had been sold some two years
previously, and exported to one of the Colonies, in small glass jars with the usual guarantee
as to soundness—which it would appear has no time limit—and had become more or less