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MUTTON AFFECTED WITH GASEOUS LYMPHADENITIS.
During August 1946 your Food Inspector on the Royal Docks
called the attention of your Medical Officer to a consignment of
Patagonian mutton and lamb (some 800 tons)due to arrive in the dock
and that against the entry of this consignment in the ship's
manifest appeared the word "caseous".
Your Medical Officer acting on this information immediately
informed the Minsitry of Food that he had instructed his Officer
to put an immediate stop on the consignment pending further information
as to why the term "caseous" had been mentioned in the manifest
and that if the intention was thereby to declare that this consignment
contains mutton infected with Caseous Lymphadenitis and the destination
of the meat.
Your Medical Officer subsequently made a personal
examination of a small sample of this consignment in company with the
Ministry of Food representatives and it was decided that the whole
consignment should be discharged into a Dock Cold Store, there to
remain until a decision as to its disposal was reached.
A further examination of 517 carcases of mutton conducted
at the request of the Ministry of Food and in the presence of their
Representative gave the following results
Diseased 41; Glands removed 405; Sound
It was subsequently decided that this consignment should
be re-exported to the Continent.
Again on the 13th November, 1946, your Food Inspector
reported the arrival of another consignment of 565 tons of mutton,
shipped in Patagonia and manifested as "European Quality". This
gave rise to a suspicion that this consignment also was infected
with caseous lymphadenitis. A subsequent examination of 100
carcases gave the following results:-
Diseased 5; Glands removed 50; Sound 45.
Here again it was mutually agreed that the consignment
should be re-exported to the Continent.
In January of this year your Medical Officer received a
communication from the Ministry of Food, Meat and Livestock Division,
informing him that, although it was the Ministry's intention to
despatch the whole of the two above-mentioned consignments to the
Continent, because of a hitch somewhere, the Ministry found itself
with a balance in hand of 6,364 carcases in the Dock Store, and the
question of the eventual handling of these carcases in England had
arisen.
The Ministry referred to the results of the test examinations
carried out in both shipments, when definite lesions of disease
were found to be few in number and minor in degree and asked your
Medical Officer favourably to consider releasing the balance of
carcases for manufacture for human food, it being clearly understood
that by so doing your Medical Officer should in no way prejudice any
action he might care to take with future consignments.
After further consultation with the Ministry of Food, your
Medical Officer agreed to release these carcases for manufacturing
purposes under the following conditions:-
1. That the meat will be employed only for manufacturing purposes
and will not, in any circumstances, be delivered direct to the
public in its present form,i.e., without being cooked during the
process of manufacture.
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