CONSUMPTION RARER.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5211, 2 December 1927, Page 4

CONSUMPTION RARER.

MAY BE ERADICATED.

A VETERINARIAN FORECAST.

By the time, our grandchildren reach manhood tuberculosis will be as rare in England as leprosy is. About 10,000 children die from consumption every year in the United Kingdom. If cattle ■can be freed from the disease these 10 000 lives a year will be saved. These confident forecasts were made at the congress of the; National Veterinary Medical Association at Torquay, when the conviction that tuberculosis will be totally eradicated in time was freely expressed. “Enormous sums are being spent yearly in the building and upkeep of sanatoria, hospitals, and clinics for curing tuberculosis,” said Major B. de Vine, superintendent of the Birmingham Veterinary Department, “but these costly .and belated measures could be removed if legislation provided powers to deal with the disease, in cattlei during its early stages. If tuberculous cows were slaughtered before they reached the stage of secreting milk containing bacilli most of the tuberculosis cases among children would be prevented.” Professor F. T. G. Hobday, new principal of the Royal veterinary College, said : “About 10,000 children die in the United Kingdom every year from tubejrculosis. We have all had tuberculosis at some time,” he continued. “It is because of strong vitality that we get rid of it. The day of pulmonary tuberculosis is passing. But abdominal tuberculosis is greatly prevalent, particularly in children, and that always comep from infected niilk. Therefore, it is correct to say that if cattle could be freed from the disease the lives of 10,000 children would be saved ye.arly. Two methods of treating the disease have been devised, and in my view both will be the means of ridding this country of the terrible scourge. Doctors must combine with veterinary surgeons. Such a combination has taken place at the University of Lille between Dr. Calmattei and Guerin, the veterinarian. They have usejd live vaccine on calves in an experimental herd, and it has proved wonderfully successful. In England. Dr. Nathan Raw, from observations in Liverpool Infirmary, is carryingout a similar method with dead vaccine. If the success of the experiments is continued tuberculosis will soon be a thing of the past. Anti-tuberculosis injection is going to make it impossible for people to have the disease/’

Asked his view of the experiments, Professor C. H. Woolridge; said he agreed with Professor Hobday that a great triumph for doctors and veterinary surgeons working together, seemed in store.

“Until these experiments havei had a fair trial it cannot be definitely proved that it is possible to preveit tuberculosis, but I believe Calmatte and Dr. Nathan Raw have succeededWhat will happen is that all calves will be inoculated soon after birth, and thus rendered immune from the disease. Older animals not free from tuberculosis will die in thq natural course of events or be slaughtered, and in their place herds of wholesome cows will come into being, for calves once inoculated will not be able) to pass on the disease. That in itself will mean that no baby will ever drink milk from which there is a danger of infection. But more babies themselves will be treated with vaccine. It is a wonderful thought that by the time our grandchildren reach manhood tuberculosis will be as rare in England as leprosy is. Of, course, this, will not be possible unless somcj arrangement is made by which cattleowners will not have to bear the whole of the loss when large numbers of tubercular cows are slaughtered.”