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29
EXHUMATION AND REINTERMENT OF BODIES AT THE
CITY OF LONDON CEMETERY.
During the year the bodies of 12 persons buried at the City of London Cemetery
at Ilford have been exhumed and subsequently re-interred in other graves in the
same Cemetery. In accordance with the terms of the Licenses issued by the
Home Secretary in respect of these cases, the work of removal and re-interment
was carried out in the early morning under the supervision of your Medical Officer
of Health.
FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE (AMENDMENT) ORDER, 1922.
The above-mentioned Order was made by the Minister of Agriculture and
Fisheries by virtue of the powers vested in him under the Diseases of Animals
Acts, 1894—1914. Among other things it provides for the notification to the
Medical Officer of Health of a sanitary district of cases or suspected cases of foot
and mouth disease in the animal or carcase.
The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries whilst continuing in general the
policy of slaughter of affected animals or animals directly in contact therewith,
decided in future to consider in each case whether local circumstances are peculiarly
favourable to the adoption of isolation in lieu of slaughtering. It is not, I understand,
anticipated that this procedure will be followed in many instances but it will
nevertheless be seriously considered.
Hitherto the invariable practice of slaughtering all affected and suspected
animals has generally automatically disposed of the question as to the use of milk
from infected cows. In the new circumstances, however, if isolation of animals
is practised, cases may arise of the distribution of milk from such animals for
human consumption unless steps are taken to prevent it.
Powers already exist in Section 15 of the Dairies, Cowsheds and Milkshops
Order, 1885, which provides that milk from a diseased cow shall not be mixed with
other milk and shall not be sold or used for human food.
The duty of enforcing the Foot and Mouth Disease (Amendment) Order rests with
the Sanitary Authority through their Medical Officer of Health, and in order that
that official shall be aware of the possibility of the presence of milk from diseased
cows in his district provision is made, as already stated, for the Medical Officer of
Health to be notified of every case or suspected case of foot and mouth disease in
his district. The Medical Officer of Health will then take such steps as will ensure
that so long as the animal is diseased its milk shall not be used for human consumption.
The question of the disposal of meat of affected animals is one of some moment,
and in this connection it should be observed that carcases of suspected animals
may be derived from two sources:—
(1) From the farm where affected animals and their contacts have
been slaughtered by order of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries,
and
(2) From slaughter-houses where animals have developed the disease
whilst being kept for slaughter.
In the first case the carcases will be disposed of under the supervision of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, but in the second case no such responsibility
will be accepted by that Authority. It will therefore be necessary for the local
Medical Officer of Health to exercise particular vigilance as to the disposal of such
carcases and the notification above referred to will afford him an opportunity for
making the necessary inspection of the animals slaughtered in such slaughterhouses
whilst the various organs are available.
The question of right of entry into the affected slaughter-houses is one to
which consideration must be given. The Foot and Mouth Disease (Amendment)
Order expressly provides that "no person (except the person attending the animal)
"shall unless authorised in writing by an inspector or officer of the Ministry, or
"by an inspector of the local authority enter any field, shed or other place being
"part of an infected place."
It is not at all clear as to whether this clause over-rides the right of entry to
a slaughter-house granted by the Public Health (London) Act and, in the City of
e