Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Tuberculosis.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the administrative procedures for controlling danger to man through the use as food of the meat and milk of tuberculous animals. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    16/502 (page 8)
    Rayment, 892. Scott, 2897. Cameron, 2625. Littlelohn, 7623,7637. King, 7835. Nuttall, 5698. Field, 320-7. Kay men t, 979. I lay don, 1.6 J 9, &c. Ackers, 1644. Nuttall, 5698. Marsdenj 2113, 2114. Holmans, 2091. A number of witnesses expressed the opinion that veterinary inspectors alone should he employed. On this question we are satisfied that some pathological training is the proper basis upon which to build the knowledge required by a meat inspector, and that, wherever practicable, veterinary surgeons, thus educated, should be employed as meat inspectors. In large towns, where a staff of inspectors is maintained, we do not think it necessary that all of these should be veterinary surgeons, but all meat inspectors should pass an examination and receive a qualifying certificate from a central authority before appointment. 22. As to the amount and distribution of tubercular disease which justifies the seizure and condemnation of a carcase as unfit for human food, the widest discrepancy prevails in opinion and practice. Chaos is the only word to express the absence of system in the inspection and seizure of tuberculous meat, and it has, in our opinion, become necessary that regulations should be formulated for the guidance of those who are concerned in dealing with this subject. In Belfast the presence of tuberculosis in any degree is held to be ground for seizure; on the other hand, in Islington the veterinary inspector of the Corporation of the city of London only seizes those carcases wherein tuberculosis is generalised and the meat in poor condition. In Dublin the medical officer of health used to seize on the slightest evidence of tuberculosis, but he has recently modified his views and only seizes carcases which are somewhat extensively affected. In Sheffield seizure is made of a carcase showing the slightest trace of tuberculosis ; in Manchester, in cases where the disease is localised, the affected part is removed and destroyed, the remainder is passed. Numerous instances of similar discrepancy will be found in the evidence; the above, taken almost at random, may be sufficient to illustrate the present condition of inspection applied to tuberculous carcases, 23. The evils arising from this want of uniformity are manifold. The stringency of inspection in Belfast, for example, drives butchers away from the public slaughter- house within the city to the private ones without the city, where the inspection is lenient, or altogether wanting. The carcases are afterwards brought into the town, the offal and any diseased organs having been removed, and thus the precautions which the corporation authorities consider it necessary to take against danger arising from the meat of even slightly tuberculous animals are frustrated. Entertaining, as we do, the strongest opinion in favour of public over private slaughter-houses, we cannot but recognise in the present arbitrary system of seizure the surest discouragement to the use of public ones. Butchers will seek relief from inspection which they consider unduly strict by using private slaughter-houses where inspection is either more lenient, or, as in most cases, wanting altogether. Very strong representations were laid before us on the part of butchers and meat traders, and also on behalf of the agriculturists who supply the butchers, as to the effect of this want of uniformity upon their business. It is obvious, we think, that these complaints are well founded. Producers and traders are making no unreasonable demand when they ask that a recognised standard should be observed, and that meat which, after effective inspection, is pronounced fit for sale in one market, should not be liable to seizure in another because the inspecting authority happens to differ in opinion as to the extent of tuberculosis which may be dangerous. 24. There is another objection to the present want of uniformity of meat inspection which has impressed itself forcibly on our minds in the course of our inquiry. Bovine tuberculosis is not confined to British animals. It prevails to at least an equal extent in certain parts of the continent of Europe. Nevertheless, the inspection of imported meat generally, whether landed as carcases or slaughtered at the port of landing, is far from being as rigid as that to which much of the meat produced at home is subjected. The inspection of cattle slaughtered at Birkenhead, whether foreign or British, is very searching ; but it is much more thorough in respect of British cattle, because the inspector sees the offal and internal organs attached to each animal. In the case of foreign cattle the offal and internal organs are removed, and the inspector has no means of identifying them. At Deptford, where on an average about 2,700 cattle per week are slaughtered, there is practically no inspection of the carcases. There is no staff adequate for the enormous numbers dealt with, therefore the meat undergoes no inspection till it arrives in Smithfield Meat Market, after the removal of the offal. Meat consigned to private traders elsewhere practically escapes inspection. In 1894, however, when the Board of Agriculture ordered the inspection of the lungs only of Canadian cattle slaughtered at