CO129-562-12 Dysentry epidemic- recommendation to enforce compulsory pasteurization of milk 7-6-1937 - 17-8-1937 — Page 61

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veterinary officers are so restricted that their lives must lack the interest necessary to attract the best men, and the incentive to them to keep up to date in all necessary branches of their profession.

That if a state service was formed to do the whole of the work at present divided, the opposite result would be obtained.

In time it should be made obligatory for a man to hold the diploma in veterinary state medicine before he could join the state service. The best men would be required and attracted for they would have a definite, responsible, and assured future, and pension. This in its turn would attract a higher standard of recruits to the veterinary profession.

It is argued also that the efficient and economical control of diseases of all domestic animals and fowls must be looked upon as one problem of vast importance to the nation, that it cannot be split up into compartments and men trained and allocated especially to And great one compartment without human and financial waste. emphasis is laid on the necessity, if any real measure of success and an adequate return for the money spent is to be obtained, for the right men to be attracted to the veterinary profession and every opportunity afforded them to become proficient. Examples have been given us, such as the persistence of sheep scab in this country, to shew that diseases are not efficiently controlled when left to local authorities, and the high incidence of bovine tuberculosis cannot be denied.

The formation of a state service would have the advantage that in the event of a sudden flare up of some serious disease, a large number of specially trained men could be concentrated on it with a minimum of delay.

The men could be allocated to the districts where they were most wanted, instead of the numbers appointed in any county being determined by the whim or the wealth of that particular county.

Appendix 13 shows the anomalies which exist between counties with a large animal population, and therefore needing large expendi- ture on veterinary officers, but having a low rateable value, and rich counties with few animals.

To balance these financial differences fairly would be very difficult, especially as regards money spent on the control of bovine tuberculosis. The milk produced in the more rural and more sparsely populated areas is consumed chiefly in the denser populated areas, and it is already a grievance in the former that they should have to pay in working the various milk orders for the benefit of the latter. If all work amongst the dairy herds was a state function all these difficulties would disappear.

It is not suggested by those advocating a state service that local authorities should lose all influence. Conditions vary so much up and down Great Britain that it would be necessary for any national scheme to be sufficiently elastic as to take advantage of the local knowledge and advice of the county council animal diseases committees. Through these the chief veterinary officer in each area

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would seek the assistance and co-operation of the police and agricul- tural organisers. If financial arrangements could be made to give the chief veterinary officers and their staffs office and laboratory accommodation in the county buildings it would have the great advantage of keeping them in close touch with the chief constables, medical officers, and agricultural organisers.

It is recognised that local authorities may object to relinquishing so much control over animal diseases, but it is held that they could not be in opposition once they understood that to be so was being an obstacle to a new, determined, and co-ordinated national attack on all kinds of diseases of farm animals and fowls.

It is impossible to arrive at exact figures, but it is held that a state service would for various reasons actually cost less than a local authority service, overlooked by state veterinary officers for the sake of co-ordination, plus the present 100 veterinary officers already employed by the Ministry of Agriculture. And it is argued that through smoother running and greater efficiency the lower cost would achieve the greater success.

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