Report of the Departmental Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease, 1952-1954.

  • Great Britain. Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Committee on Foot and Mouth Disease.
Date:
[1954]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Departmental Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease, 1952-1954. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/166 (page 24)
    U.S.A. (Cattle—88 million; sheep—28 million; pigs—64 million. Number of outbreaks 1951 /52—Nil.) 55. As in Great Britain, stamping-out means the slaughter of all infected animals and their contacts. Outbreaks of the disease occurred in the United States in 1902, 1908, 1914, 1924/25 and 1929. The outbreak in February, 1924, extended to 16 counties in California; 132,000 animals were slaughtered and it took 10 months to eradicate the disease. According to the Report of the Special Sub-committee to the Committee on Appro- priations of the United States Senate about the control of foot-and-mouth disease (published in 1948): “‘ Unusual difficulties were encountered in the spread of the disease to large range herds and flocks in rough, inaccessible, poorly fenced country, and to deer in a national forest”. Another outbreak occurred in September of the same year in Texas, which had no apparent connexion with the California outbreak. This was got under control within 30 days, after the slaughter of 32,000 animals. The outbreak in 1929 was also quickly brought under control—*“ in a few weeks ”—after the slaughter of 3,500 animals. Canada (Cattle—94 million; sheep—2 million; pigs—S4 million. Number of outbreaks 1951/52—29.) : 56. The only occasion on which the disease is known to have occurred in Canada was in 1951/52. It was stamped out by the slaughter of all susceptible animals both on the infected premises and on farms that had been exposed to infection. Altogether over 1.700 animals were killed. Nearly 1,700 poultry and over 13,000 eggs on infected premises were also destroyed. It took six months to eradicate the disease. Although it was not recognised as foot-and-mouth disease until February, 1952, subsequent investigations indicated that the first outbreak had occurred about the middle of the previous November and had then been diagnosed as vesicular stomatitis. ‘The Canadian veterinary authorities came to the conclusion that the disease was conveyed to the country by an immigrant from an infected farm in Western Germany. He left that country on the 17th October, 1951, and was employed on a Canadian farm from the 2nd until the Sth November, 1951. Ten days after he had left the farm, the owner noticed that his pigs were off their food and were salivating*. Before the outbreak had been diagnosed as foot-and-mouth disease, the disease was found to have spread, in spite of the limited movement of livestock on account of winter conditions, to about a dozen other farms and also to a meat packing plant. The thoroughness with which the stamping-out method was applied is shown by the following extracts from a paper by Dr. Childs, the Canadian Veterinary Director-General :; “Tt was realised that residual infection remaining on premises after affected livestock had been removed could not be certainly eliminated during the cold, freezing weather. To prevent possible dissemination from that source, immediately after the infected livestock had been removed, gangs of men under continuous Federal veterinary supervision moved in and collected and burned all hay, straw, feedstuffs, litter, etc. * In a paper submitted by Dr. Childs, the Canadian Veterinary Director-General, to the Fifteenth International Veterinary Congress, he says: ‘‘ When all details of the picture were painted in . . . it appeared obvious the immigrant . . . carried in his baggage or personal effects meat or meat products, derived from infected animals, probably in the form of summer sausage, the curing or processing of which was not sufficient to destroy the contained virus...”