A MEDICAL WARNING.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 651, 14 March 1914, Page 2

A MEDICAL WARNING.

DANGER FROM HYDATIDS. In the course of a paper on "Hydatid Disease" at the Medical Congress at Auckland recently, Dr L. F. Barnett, of Dunedin, drew attention to tue yearly loss in actual money resulting through the prevalence of the complaint, and emphasised the necessity of a publicity campaign by the Government so that farmers could be fully apprised of the importance of measures for checking its spread. It was advocated that prominent placards should be placed at railway stations, and other places of public assembling, issuing a warning against the feeding of dogs on raw meat on similar lines to that was being done in the Argentine. It was stated that the disease was mora prevalent in the South island than in the North Island, and an estimate was submitted showing that the disease was reducible by half. The annual saving in loss of sheep alone would be £129,500. A computation made placed the loss on rejected meat because of hydatids during the past ten years at a value of £200,000. In the course of the discussion which followed and in which several doctors took part, Dr Stapley declared that a great deal of the disease was to be found in any of the abattoirs in New Zealand and that dogs should be vigilantly kept away from such premises to avoid the spread of hydatids by feeding on the offal.