INFECTED FOODS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 54, 25 August 1911, Page 8

INFECTED FOODS.

REPORT OF COMMISSION ON TUBERCULOSIS. STRINGENT REGULATIONS SUGGESTED. The relations of human and animal tuberculosis are summed up in the final report issued on July 11 as a Parliamentary Blue-book of the Royal Commission appointed to consider the matter. The Commission was appointed in August, 1901, and has been engaged in investigations concerning the theories from time to time propounded, and this, their final report, summarises the results of their exhaustive inquiry and experiments. In the statement now issued the Commissioners say:— Three previous reports have been issued by us. In the first (1904) the results of our preliminary investigations were discussed, and it was shown that the bacilli found in the lesions of certain cases of human tuberculosis produced in cattle a disease indistinguishable from bovine tuberculosis. In our second interim rel port (1907) we dealt at come length with | bovine and human tuberculosis, and emI bodied in it the results Obtained up to that date in the investigations on the [ character of the bacillus of bovine.tuberculosis and of the bacilli found in cases of human tuberculosis. In the third inter 1 "' report (1909) we dealt with certain conditions of the tuberculous cow which rendered her milk infectious. In this, our fiiml report, we propose to deal with the whole of our inquiry into the tuberculosis of various animals. THREE QUESTIONS. The questions that were referred to the Commission for investigation and report were —

"Whether the disease in animals and man are one and the same. 'Whether animals and men can be reciprocity infected with it. "Under what conditions, if at «11, the transmission of the disease from animals to man takes place, and what are the circumstances favourable or unfavourable to such transmission."

Very briefly put, the conclusion of the Commissioners with regard to the first of these terms of reference is that there does not appear to be sufficient ground for answering the question in the affirmative. The Commissioners give the ground on which they arrive at their answer to the second, which is that some other mammals and man can be reciprocally infected with tuberculosis. '"The possible danger to man through reciprocity ; in this sense was, of course, the most important question presented to us, and, as we have conclusively shown that many cases of fatal tuberculosis in the human subject have been produced by the bacillus known to cause the disease in cattle the possibility of such infection cannot be denied, and the importance of this conclusion is not dimished by the fact that the majority of such cases examined by us occurred in young children, or by the merely local results following the administration of the human type of bacillus to'bovine animals. Bovine animals are not completely immune to the human tubercle bacillus, and adult human beings can be infected with the bovine type, even the pulmonary form of the disease in man being .sometimes caused by the bovine tubercle bacillus." FACTORS IN TRANSMISSION.

Transmission of tuberculosis from animals to man, they say, must obviously be mainly dependent on the susceptibility of any given animal to this disease and on the opportunity afforded such animal for transferring its acquired and developed infection to the human subject. But animals, domestic and other, capable of suffering from Severe tuberculosis of the human type are comparatively few, and it is pointed out that the cow, however prone she may be when the subject of bovine tuberculosis to excrete bovine bacilli in her milk, has never under natural condions been shown to eliminate in this way the human tubercle bacillus. Nevertheless, it is not to be affirmed with confidence that man is wholly free from risk through animal food of infection with that type of tubercle bacillus to which he appears most prone, though the degree of danger to him in this sense must remain, say the Commissioners, for the present undetermined. The pig, though not capable of fostering tubercle bacilli of the human type except in a minor degree, may be regarded as a possible source of the disease caused in man by that type of bacillus, for the reason that particular glands of the pig body which are 'likely to enter into certain prepared foods do on occasion yield tubercle bacilli of the human type. SOURCES OF INFECTION.

Discussing possible sources of infection, the Commissioners say: "It may be asked in what way are children, who are especially liable to exhibit acute fatal tuberculosis as an abdominal affection, most likely to obtain a large and fatally infective dose of tubercle bacilli. To this question there can be but one answer—that the evidence which we have accumulated goes to demonstrate that a considerable amount of the tuberculosis of childhood is to be ascribed to infection with bacilli of the bovine type transmitted to children in meals largely consisting of the milk of the cow. In many cases of abdominal tuberculosis and in tuberculosis of the cervical gland the child may be injured through the milk with fatal results. In all the cases of cervical gland tuberculosis investigated by the Commissioners the patients had recovered or were recovering after operation." The Commissioners proceed to say that althought the potency of infected cow's milk as the cause of tuberculosis in infancy and childhood is clearly demonstrated, it is rarely fatally so in case of an adult, which! if considered alone, might tend to discount the danger to the adult, not only of the milk, but also of the flesh of such animals, but they investigated cases in which the disease in adults was -sufficient to incapacitate the patient for the ordinary duties of life, and the disease vas solely due to the (■fleets of the bovine, tubercle bacillus. T!EPOMMK\-|)ATIOXS.

"In view of the evidence adduced by us," the Commissioners conclude, '-we regard ourselves as csiilcl upon to pronounce an administrative measure required for obtaining security against the

transmission of the bovine tubercle by means of food. In the interests, therefore of infants and children, the mcinbers of the population whom we have" proved to be specially endangered, and for the .reasonable safeguarding of the public health generally, we would urge that existing regulations for the supervision of milk production and meat preparation be not relaxed; that, on the contrary, the Government should cause to be enforced throughout the Kingdom food regulations planned to afford better* security against the infection of hu« man beings through the medium of articles of diet derived from tuberculous animals. More particularly we would urge action in this sense in order to avert or minimise the present danger arising from the consumption of infected millv) And in this connection it may be convenient for us to repeat certain facts observed by us in reference to the conditions tending to the elimination by the cow of bovine tubercle bacilli in her milk —facts, in our opinion, of such importance that they formed the subject of a third interim report. Bovine tubercle bacilli are apt to be abundantly present in milk as sold to the public when there is tuberculous disease of the udder of the cow from which it was obtained. This fact is, we believe, generally recognised, though not adequately guarded against, but these bacilli may also be present in the milk of tuberculous cows presenting no evidence whatever of disease of the udder, even when examined post-mortem. Further, the milk of tuberculous cows not containing bacilli as it leaves the udder may, and frequently does, become infected by being contaminated with the faeces of uterine discharge of such diseased animal. We are convinced that measures for securing the prevention of the infection of living bovine tubercle bacilli in milk would greatly reduce the number of cases of abdominal and cervical gland tuberculosis in children, and that such measures should include the exclusion from the food supply of milk of the recognisably tuberculous cow, irrespectivn of the site of the disease, whether in the uddsr or in the internal organs.