View report page

110
have only to add that it is extremely desirable to avoid the use of
underdone (and still more of raw) pig meat in any form, and that
special precautions should be taken to very thoroughly cook, and,
even, to "overdo," such meat. Subject to such precautions,
even trichinous meat might be used without producing the
dangerous disease in question, although, as a matter of prudence,
any suspicious meat should be instantly destroyed.
GLANDERS.
I referred in my last Annual Report to the subject of glanders
in horses, a disease that had attracted considerable attention
owing to a serious outbreak at Colville Mews which led to two
deaths of parishioners; owing, moreover, to the actual prevalence of
the disease in your Vestry's stables, and to the alleged extensive
prevalence of the disease in the parish. We have heard but little
of the subject, locally, during the past year; no further outbreak
happily having occurred in your Vestry's stables: but it would
appear from the Annual Report of the Metropolitan Board of
Works that many horses have been destroyed on account of
glanders, and the related disease, farcy. There is ground for
believing, however, that the apparently increased frequency* of
the disease is due to the fact that the prosecutions instituted by
the Board, and the infliction of maximum penalties by the
Magistrates, have led to an early disclosure of cases, rather than to
any actual increase. In January, 1881, I received information
that a member of the family of horse copers, who had been mixed
up with the Colville Mews outbreak, had taken premises in
Royal Crescent Mews, and was slaughtering glandered horses
there. It turned out on enquiry that horses, whether glandered
or not, had been slaughtered on the premises in contravention of
the provisions of the Slaughter Houses (Metropolis) Act, 1874,
but upon the premises being visited by the police at my request
they were found to be empty, the tenant having taken alarm and
decamped.
* "The number of cases of glanders (573) and farcy (426) reported on by the
Board's Veterinary Inspectors in 1880, is larger than in any previous year."
Annual Report of Metropolitan Board of Works