NationalLibraryOfScotland/medical-history-of-british-india huggingface dataset:
108
At the meeting Mr. Cameron stated that the conditions in Burma
seemed to be somewhat different from those prevalent in India.
The journey from Muktesar to Rangoon took 10 days and frequently
the serum was conveyed at a high temperature, probably near
boilers in the hold of the ship, and deterioration appeared to take
place within that time. Sometimes he received a telegram from
the borders of Siam asking for a supply of serum. Supplies had
to be transported thereto by carts and other primitive methods.
The question upon which he desired information was whether some
methods might be evolved to prevent the deterioration of serum
during transport. The serum which he had in mind was anti-
rinderpest serum. Again it was frequently a cause of inconvenience
to him that mallein was supplied in bottles containing 100 c.c. It
would be a great advantage if it could be supplied in single doses
in sealed tubes, as in the provinces it was not required for more
than a few animals at a time.
Mr. Hewlett stated that he had had experience in the despatch
of large quantities of Muktesar serum during the war to Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and elsewhere, and he had had no complaints about
deterioration. He had not experienced any difficulty in regard
to mallein on account of it being supplied in bulk. He found that
he could decant the liquid and issue it for inoculation in the. quanti-
ties which were necessary.
Mr. Wilson wondered whether something on the principle of a
Thermos flask could be devised for the transportation of serum
bottles. He found that if the cases were embedded in white sand
during transport deterioration did not set in.
Mr. Cameron stated that the kind of conveyances available in
Burma in many parts precluded this method of transport.
Mr. Harris stated that in Assam he had encountered no material
difficulties in maintaining the quality of serum. He would like to
know at what temperature serum commenced to deteriorate. Per-
haps cans similar to those used for the transport of perishable goods
might be devised for the purpose of carrying serum.
Mr. Cameron stated that he had in mind a publication which
had been issued recently by the authorities in the Phillipines with
regard to methods for keeping serum cool during transport.
Mr. Hickey stated that no difficulties in this respect had been
experienced in the United Provinces.
The Chairman likewise stated that no difficulties had been
encountered in the Punjab.
Mr. Farbrother had had no difficulty except when serum had had
to be transported to some remote parts of the Bombay Presidency.
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Mr. Edwards explained that the question of supplying serum
in a more easily transportable form and of preventing deterioration
when it became exposed to relatively high temperatures had already
engaged his attention. At the present time he had ordered from
abroad a plant for drying serum at a low temperature, and if the
results obtained after the experimental trials were satisfactory the
whole problem brought forward by Mr. Cameron might be completely
solved and serum could be issued in a convenient form and in much
less bulk, so that it could be readily transported to remote districts.
He was also sanguine that the quality of the serum could be re-
tained much longer. He did not consider it necessary therefore at
the present juncture to discuss the methods of better dealing with
the liquid serum until the results of his experiments were available.
Experience elsewhere, in America particularly, with dried serum,
such as dried anti-swine-fever serum, had given promising results
In the course of further discussion with Mr. Cameron, he assured
him that there would be no difficulty in supplying him with mallein.
from the Muktesar laboratory in such small quantities as he desired
for immediate use. He also stated that he had recently been en-
gaged in preparing mallein for the intra-palpebral test so as to have
available a product comparable with the French malléine diluée.
The diluted mallein thus prepared was found to be quite as effective
as the French product after comparative tests upon experimentally
infected animals and it would be issued from the laboratory in small
glass tubes at as cheap a rate. Mr. Edwards further stated that
he wished at this point to impress upon those who made indents for
serum that it would be a great advantage if they all possessed cold
storage facilities for the storage of supplies of serum in anticipation
of their likely needs. Serum could be manufactured at the Branch
Laboratory at Bareilly during the winter months at very much
cheaper rate than at the parent Muktesar laboratory. During the
few winter months that had just passed large quantities of serum
had been manufactured there in anticipation of demands from the
provinces. For the last two years, however, it seemed that the
demands from the provinces were not as large as had been expected,
and large quantities had had to be transported back to Muktesar.
It would be advantageous to the laboratory and to the officers in
the provinces if adequate arrangements were made in each province
for the cold storage of serum in anticipation of likely demands,
and if this serum could be indented for while the manufacture of
serum was being undertaken in the cold season at Bareilly. He
commended to the meeting the passing of a resolution to this effect.
Mr. Hickey stated that he would like the meeting to pass a resolu-
tion with regard to cold storage, as in the United Provinces his
cold storage facilities were limited to one cool storage chest.
H
110
Mr. Harris stated that in Assam a reserve of serum was main-
tained in the cooler parts of the province, namely, in the hill stations.
Colonel Pallin intimated that if a resolution were passed to the
effect that cool storage facilities should be provided in each province
where such facilities did not already exist, the case would be met
as most of the provinces appeared to be provided for in this respect.
After further discussion it was resolved unanimously:—
Resolution III (d)
(1) That adequate cool storage facilities should be provided in
all provinces where such facilities do not already exist
for the preservation of serum.
(2) That experiments regarding the possibility of manufacturing
a satisfactory dried anti-rinderpest serum should be
prosecuted as speedily as possible, and, in the event of
failure to obtain satisfactory results from these experi-
ments, some convenient method of transporting serum
should be devised.
SUBJECT III (e).--MEAT INSPECTION. IS IT WITHIN THE PRESENT
COMPETENCE OF THE DEPARTMENT TO DEAL WITH THIS QUESTION?
WHAT FURTHER ARRANGEMENTS FOR TRAINING PERSONNEL
FOR THE SPECIAL DUTIES ENTAILED ARE REQUIRED.
The Chairman said: " The subject of meat inspection was
suggested for discussion by Mr. Cross, who is not here. A number
of local bodies in India employ Veterinary Assistants as Meat Inspec-
tors, but it is doubtful if, generally speaking, a satisfactory standard
of efficiency is furnished to these bodies thereby or is required by
them.
" Veterinary Assistants have not hitherto been taught meat
inspection as a separate subject at the Punjab Veterinary College,
but the new course provides for special instruction in both meat
and milk inspection, with practical demonstrations.
" Perhaps the Principals of colleges from Calcutta, Bombay
and Madras will tell us what is taught at those colleges in this connec-
tion and Superintendents may give us their experiences.
"It is doubtful if local bodies generally have yet grasped the
importance of the subject and there is no doubt the difficulties in
applying adequate measures are very great. Milk inspection is
quite as important as meat inspection, if not more so, and the ques-
tion of milk is more likely to be treated seriously in India than
that of meat inspection.
111
" It is unlikely that much will be done at present, but I consider
that if we educate men to perform the duties efficiently there will
be a demand for their services eventually."
Mr. Farbrother, who had stated his veiws in his circular note,
informed the meeting that in certain localities there was at present a
demand for this class of worker, but the duties could not be under-
taken by the Veterinary Assistant posted in the locality as he had
to tour his district for a considerable part of his time, and while
he was away from his headquarters there was nobody left to do
the work except a salutri or compounder. He thought that the
work was essentially a matter for the municipalities to take up
themselves.
Lieutenant-Colonel Hutchinson stated that the appointment
of meat inspectors had now become essential in many parts. He
had a great deal of experience in regard to cattle slaughter. Near
Bombay there was one large slaughter house in which buffaloes,
mainly, were killed and their meat subjected to a process of drying
and then exported to Burma. The conditions of the slaughter
house were very bad and there was no inspection whatever of the
meat. The question which he wished to ask the meeting was to
what extent veterinary colleges could undertake the training for
this work, as men for the work must be provided.
Mr. Quinlan thought that much useful information with regard
to the incidence of tuberculosis and other diseases would be obtain-
able with an adequate system of meat inspection. He thought
that the Military Department could co-operate by assisting them in
the system of meat inspection.
Mr. Hewlett stated that the students at the Bombay college
were admittedly not given an extensive course of training in meat
inspection, but they were given theoretical training at the college
and elementary practical instruction at the Bandra slaughter house.
He agreed with Lieutenant-Colonel Hutchinson that the condition
of affairs at the Kurla Slaughter House, where dried buffalo meat was
manufactured for the purpose of export to Burma, was disgraceful.
But he did not consider that the state of affairs in the other slaughter
houses in Bombay was quite so bad. Before a proper course of
instruction could be given to the veterinary students at the slaughter
houses, it would be necessary to enforce the inspection of meat at
the slaughter houses, and this was a matter for legislation.
Khan Saheb Sheikh Naiz Mohammed believed that the inspec-
tion of carcases at the slaughter houses would give valuable informa-
tion relative to the investigation of disease in general, for at the
present time it was customary for animal owners to send their
diseased animals to the slaughter houses to be used as human food.
H 2
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Mr. MacGregor stated that the inspection of meat was undertaken
at the slaughter house in Calcutta by a Veterinary Assistant who
had undergone no special course of instruction in the subject before
he was posted to this appointment;
Lieutenant-Colonel Hutchinson asked if it would not be possible
to institute a special course of study dealing with meat inspection
in the veterinary curriculum.
Mr. Farbrother stated that this class of instruction could be
undertaken in the slaughter houses as he believed that it would
otherwise entail a very expensive curriculum.
The Chairman stated that instruction in meat inspection had
been included in the Bombay programme for the four years' course
of study.
Mr. Edwards maintained that a system of veterinary training
necessarily provided the best ground-work for the education of a
competent meat inspector. In reality, meat inspection might be
regarded as a very simple form of applied pathology, or study
of the technique of post-mortem examination. The voluminous
treatises available on this subject were almost entirely text-books
dealing with the grosser pathological changes found post-mortem.
If the information concerning these changes were deleted from such
books, there would be little left. He admitted, however, that if
it were thought necessary to teach students in full detail the pro-
cesses of refrigeration, slaughter house construction, the utilization
of by-products, etc., a special course in meat inspection could be
made very prolonged and expensive. Otherwise, he considered that
a few weeks' experience in a slaughter house was quite sufficient to
give a veterinary graduate all the further information he required
to deal with this special work. In England, meat inspection resolved
itself very largely into the detection of tuberculous lesions. At
the present time, the importance of undertaking meat inspection
with a view to minimizing the risk to human beings of contracting
tuberculosis from this source was not deemed to be so great as it
was a few years ago, for it was admitted that the proportion of
cases of human tuberculosis contracted by the ingestion of tuber-
culous meat must be very low indeed, and the dangers from the
tuberculous milk of cattle would seem to be incomparably greater.
The really important sources of danger to human beings from the
ingestion of meat could not be detected by any system of meat
inspection which consisted merely of naked eye inspection of the
carcases. He meant to say that the so-called " food poisonings "
which in reality were specific bacterial infections, due for the most
part to Gärtner's bacillus, Bacillus botulinus, and certain other
113
organisms, were usually related to no changes visible to the naked
eye in the meat.
Mr. MacGregor contended that it would be necessary to train
the veterinary graduates further to recognize such conditions as
putrefactive changes and changes due to " fevered flesh."
Mr. Edwards maintained that this aspect of the problem ought to
be well inculcated in any veterinary student who had been properly
taught the pathology appertaining to his ordinary training. More-
over, these were changes which would be readily detected by the
consumer himself and were not usually attendant with danger to
him, but were such as to make the meat nauseous to the senses.
He admitted that the general principle of meat inspection was to
safeguard the consumer against any risk of purchasing meat other
than that for which he paid, namely, the " wholesome " and " un-
tainted " flesh of the healthy animal from which it was purported
to be obtained. In the three years' course of study which had been
drafted by the Conference during its proceedings, the subject of
meat inspection had been included in the final year of the course of
study, in " State Veterinary Medicine." He believed that they
could well assure Lieutenant-Colonel Hutchinson that there would
be no difficulty in providing municipalities and other bodies with
men sufficiently trained for carrying out meat inspection from the
colleges when this course of study had been adopted, if these bodies
were prepared to pay a reasonable rate of salary for their services.
It was resolved subsequently unanimously :—
Resolution III (e)
That training in meat inspection is now provided in certain
Veterinary Colleges in India and can be extended in scope as
the demand for the services of graduates as meat inspectors
increases.
SUBJECT III (f).—METHODS TO BE ADOPTED TO CORRELATE TECHNI-
CAL
INFORMATION AND RENDER AUTHORITATIVE ADVICE ON
PROFESSIONAL PROBLEMS.
The Chairman ruled that the substance of the note submitted
by Mr. Ware might be discussed under this heading.
Mr. Edwards said that this was a subject he had very much at
heart and considered it was one of the most important on the
agenda. In order to demonstrate the utility of the profession in
the economy of a civilized community, it was essential to harmonize
the endeavours of all workers belonging to it in the country and to
furnish the individual members with the means of inter-communica-
tion and a supply of technical information upon the topical cogent
problems that continuously arose in course of their pursuit. He
114
wished to impress upon them that, although in the course of their
previous discussions they had often made reference to the need of
specialized workers, yet as a profession they had one common task
to perform, namely, the control of animal disease, and one sub-
ject to study, namely, the investigation of animal disease. In.
reality, it was this common pursuit which bound them together
and represented the task which they held themselves capable of
performing for the public benefit. He wished to impress upon
members that political controversies and discussions on administra-
tive matters ultimately led to no benefit either to the public or to the
members themselves if they did not, as a professional body, possess
a sound ground-work of technical information. Although he
insisted that the pursuit followed by the veterinary profession
represented an entity in the economy of a civilized country, yet
they could not pursue their endeavours in complete isolation, but
they must work in close collaboration with workers whose pursuits-
frequently overlapped their own to a large extent, and in this con-
nection he referred particularly to workers in the medical profes-
sion and in animal husbandry. The proposals which he wished to
put forward in order to accomplish these desiderata might be sub-
mitted in a practical form under three heads, namely : (1) The-
need for the institution of a professional journal as a medium for
the dissemination of information of technical interest to the profes-
sion in India. (2) The need for the establishment of small central
advisory bodies that would be able to collect reliable information
and render authoritative advice to Government upon certain of
the peculiar aspects of their calling at any time. (3) The need for
amalgamation or collaboration with workers in kindred pursuits.
Under the first of these headings he maintained that without a
medium for the publication of observations and for obtaining in-
formation upon the problems connected with the peculiar conditions
of disease of live-stock in India, members who were not in a position
to consult the voluminous literature dealing with matters directly
or indirectly connected with their professional duties would lose
touch with the progress made in modern knowledge connected with
their calling. He insisted that if a medium of this kind were estab-
lished, it was absolutely essential that it should be regarded as a
purely technical publication and on no account be allowed to
degenerate into a medium for the expression of political or quasi-
political information. In the note which he had circulated he
had given his reasons for the establishment, as soon as practi-
cable, of a journal conducted along the lines upon which the
Journal of Tropical Veterinary Science, now defunct, had been
conducted in the past. He recapitulated these reasons and
maintained that it should be within the competence of the pro-
115
fession in India to publish a quarterly issue containing original
communications to which might be added abstracts of information
from other journals regarding matters of relevant interest to them.
Secondly, the need for small standing committees which might
be called upon by the Government of India at any time to render
representative and authoritative advice on technical questions had
become more and more evident in the course of the deliberations
of the conference, so that he need hardly dwell upon the urgency
of this proposition. He proposed, therefore, that they should estab-
lish three Central Standing Advisory Committees, the composition
of which would be left to the Government of India and which would
be in a position to submit the considered and collective views of
the Service whenever there was any need of their advice. He
gave examples of the inevitable delays and difficulties which appeared
to have been experienced by the administrative authorities at the
seat of Government from having to refer questions on technical
matters to Local Governments who were separately advised by
their veterinary officers. If small powerful bodies of officers could
be gathered together, a clear expression of the views of the profes-
sion in the country could be formulated for the guidance of the
Central Governments and the Local Governments and thereby the
position of the individual adviser would be greatly strengthened.
The Committees, he submitted, should be three in number to
deal with the following questions :—
(1) Education.
(2) Civil Veterinary Administration.
(3) Epizootic Disease and Research.
Under the third heading it was again hardly necessary to reiterate
what Lieutenant-Colonel Hutchinson very aptly stated in his con-
tribution to the discussion upon anthrax, namely, that the problem
of disease was one and indivisible, whether it affected men, animals
or plants. This general aspect of the problem had been pointed
out in very clear terms in the Report of the Advisory Committee
upon Research into Diseases of Animals, which submitted its report
in 1922 to the Development Commissioners in England. In many
cases the investigations of medical workers and veterinary workers
covered common ground. Again, in previous discussions they had
seen that they could not carry out their work properly without
assistance from specialists in various branches of zoology. Next,
the important questions of disease and health were relative, and
our interests were therefore intimately bound with those of workers
who were directly interested with the maintenance of animals in
health, namely, of men engaged in what is termed animal husbandry.
116
Their services as investigators of animal disease might be considered
of direct economic importance only to the owners of domesticated
animals but it might be stated that indirectly they were of inestim-
able value in the elucidation of the whole problem of disease, which
was tantamount to the maintenance of health in the whole popula-
tion.
The Chairman stated that Mr. Ware's note did not appear to
be admissible, as he referred to the question of creating Directors
of Veterinary Service in each of the provinces. The Government
of India had ruled that it was not within the competence of the
conference to discuss administrative questions, but he was inclined
to admit it if Mr. Ware could show that the proposition had a pro-
fessional aspect.
Mr. Ware said that the professional aspects of his note were
quite obvious, for in Madras there was a professional head at the
college and an administrative head of the service in the field, and
their posts were entirely separate and independent. If the service
had a single head the functions of the college and of the service
could be co-ordinated. In the case of all other departments in the
province there was a local head.
Mr. Hewlett was rather sceptical as to the merits of the advice
tendered with regard to reviving a professional journal in India. He
pointed out that it would cost a great deal of money and labour to
conduct a departmental journal, and this journal would only deal
with certain aspects of veterinary diseases. He stated that it was
ruled as the outcome of the 1908 conference that no articles would
be submitted to other journals than the Journal of Tropical Veteri-
nary Science except with the approval of the Inspector-General,
but this stood in the way of recording cases. He believed that it
would be best to publish professional information in one or other
of the journals in the United Kingdom, as, for instance, in the
Veterinary Journal. He was entirely opposed to any policies of
centralization, and although he favoured the creation of central
bodies for purposes of research and certain epizootic diseases, he
was much against any interference with local administrations.
Mr. Quinlan had no doubt but that the great majority of those
present would entirely agree with Mr. Edwards in his proposals for
the co-ordination of effort, particularly in regard to education and
epizootic diseases. Not only did he think that a Central Committee
should advise the Local Governments upon questions of education
but it ought to take in hand the examination of teaching institu-
tions and consider the methods of examining students.
Mr. Kerr considered that one of the chief advantages of institut-
ing Central Committees would be that they would strengthen the