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147
Hitherto the Government has done but little to safeguard the
public health against the dangers of tuberculous milk. The Order
which it issued in 1899, requiring that milk from a cow with Tuberculosis
of the udder must not be used for human food, etc., made no
provision calling for the inspection of cows in order to detect the
existence of the condition, nor did it empower Local Authorities to
cause the animals found to be so affected to be slaughtered. The
consequence is that a dairyman who finds one of his cows so affected
often passes it on to his neighbour. As I have stated in a former
report, the provisions called for in the interests of the public health
embrace (a) the inspection of all milch-cows by the County Council,
to include a frequent examination by a veterinary surgeon ; (b) the
compulsory notification by the owner of every obviously diseased
cow; (c) every cow with Tuberculosis to be branded on the hoof so as
to prevent it from being sold as a milk-producer. As a matter both of
justice and of policy some compensation should be provided at least in
the case of those tuberculous animals which furnish no obvious
symptoms of the disease, and which have been kept under reasonable
sanatary conditions. Such compensation need only be
provided for a limited number of years, during which time it will
be possible for the farmer to eradicate the disease from his herd.
But the farmer should be made to suffer some loss in respect of every
cow condemned, because the effect of this would be to impress the
need for better preventive action in the future. As the matter is a
national one, the Exchequer should contribute the necessary funds
for compensation and any scheme should be made to apply to the
whole of the country.
ACUTE POLIO-MYELITIS.
The recognition of this disease, which has long been known
under the name of Infantile Paralysis, as a communicable disease
liable at times to take on localised epidemic prevalence, has come
tardily in this country. But in America and Northern Europe such
outbreaks have been not uncommon. Our present knowledge with
reference to the disease is well summarised in a recently issued