HYDATID INFECTION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 July 1938, Page 3

HYDATID INFECTION

NOT CAUSED BY RABBITS. “There is one point in particular that occasions surprise and doubt,” writes Sir Louis Barnett from Hampden. “I refer to the statement, emphatic and quite true, that rabbits play no part in the spread of hydatid disease.” ■ “Everyone, every country dweller at any rate, has probably seen cysts or water bladders in the insides of rabbits, especially in the muscles and in the liver. These are popularly regarded as hydatid cysts, and it is thought that they must render the carcase of the rabbit unwholesome and liable to cause hydatid infection in the dog or human being that feeds on it. This is an error. It is true that these cysts in the rabbit are also of parasitic origin, but they are not hydatids. They belong to a different family and take no part in the spread of hydatid tapeworms to dogs, or of cysts to human beings and farm animals.” It is, of course, reasonable to conclude that if these cysts are parasitic in nature they will cause some trouble if eaten, and therefore to be on the safe side human beings should not eat rabbits as food. This, too, is an error, because cooking removes all danger of

infection, and no one eats raw rabbit. Even if he did, it could not give him hydatid disease. Stewed rabbit or rabbit pie, or rabbit cooked in any way, can be safely eaten and thoroughly enjoyed.