INOCULATION EXPERIMENTS ON CATTLE
[To the Editor of Tax SPECTATOR.] Sm,—The letters which have appeared under the above heading in connexion with the Interim Report issued by the Ministry of Agriculture, Northern Ireland, regarding experi- ments that are being carried on at the Government Research Farm, Hillsborough, are instructive, not only to the citizens and ratepayers of Northern Ireland who contributed the £10,000 which we understand is being spent upon this seemingly vain search for immunization of cattle against tuberculosis, but to your readers generally. Surely the utter failure of research along these lines during the past twenty-five or thirty years should be enough to satisfy all concerned that immunity cannot be produced artificially. Why not face the truth, that cattle, like human beings, can only be immune from disease if they have .decent housing conditions, sun- light, fresh air, and suitable food ? The vast majority of our farm animals are housed for six or eight months of the year in unsanitary, ramshackle byres or hovels of various kinds, without either light or fresh air, except that which enters by the door, and devoid of a pure water supply. Many of these animals spend day and night in total darkness lying down and standing up in wet filth.
How can animals be rendered free from disease while living under such utterly unnatural and abominable conditions ?
;Why not-" experiment!' in spending £10,000 a year in: insisting. upon food animals being kept in. sanitary and hygienic sur-- roundings ? Only thus.will " immunity he obtained.
In weighing up the claims for and against .vaecincs for the prevention' of tuperculoais_in 'cattle, stuchnta -of the subject should remember what has happened in regard • to former much-talked-of vaccines that- had a similar object to that of Spahlinger, and surely the Govemmint 'should pause before going further with a costly investigation which, even if it be considered a " success " at the moment, will doubtless in a few years prove to be as useless as those much ventilated " successes " of, say, Behring and Koch and others are tin
Previous page
