History of disease control in the UK
The appearance of foot-and-mouth disease in 1839 and pleuro-pneumonia in 1840 first drew attention to the fact that the Royal Veterinary College in London still did not take the study of farm livestock seriously, and the College was virtually blackmailed into rectifying this deficiency in their teaching by appointing Professor J B Simonds as the first Professor of Veterinary Pathology at the School. At the same time, graduates of the London and Edinburgh schools had been building up their demand for recognition as a profession by Royal Charter. This was granted in 1844 and the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons started its duties.
Before 1841 there was a prohibition on the importation of animals for food purposes, but in 1842 they were allowed in, subject to a duty - oxen 20 shillings, cows 15 shillings, sheep 3 shillings, and pigs 5 shillings. In 1846 Sir Robert Peel removed the remaining duties and animals came in free. There was thus an obviously increased risk of the introduction of any disease that happened to be prevalent on the Continent at the time, and in 1847 Sheep Pox did in fact reach England in some sheep recently imported from Germany.
There was no authority directly responsible for dealing with this disease, (or any other for that matter) and consequently it was spread indiscriminately throughout the country by farmers and graziers alike sending affected and in-contact sheep to markets and fairs. When the outbreak was well established the attention of the Committee of the Privy Council for Trade was drawn to the fact that the disease was a serious matter and was causing considerable losses to sheepowners. Although the Committee knew there were many local by-laws and regulations throughout the country for the seizure of diseased meat and fish it was apparently not sure to what extent, if at all, the local authorities had used or could use their powers to seize and destroy infected animals if exposed at any local market or fair. The Committee knew that the City of London had such powers but it did not have precise information about the working of the City's regulations. In July 1848 an urgent circular letter to all market managers said:
" I am directed by the Lords of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade to request that you will, at your earliest convenience, inform their Lordships whether any, and what, bye-laws or regulations are in force in ..... market with respect to diseased or infected animals ... exposed for sale: whether any power exists for seizing and destroying the same, and by whom and in what manner that power is exercised. My Lords being about to introduce a Bill for the purpose of preventing the exposure of diseased sheep in the market, are anxious to collect information as to the mode of proceeding in different parts of the country".
The answers received were generally to the effect that, in those towns that had any bye-laws for the seizure and destruction of "unsound Meat, Fish and other Provisions" none existed for the seizure and destruction of live diseased animals.
From the time of this statement there was a ready increase each year in reported cases, but even then Professor Brown was convinced that only a small percentage was being reported.
The Cattle Plague Department was set up to deal with the epidemic of that disease in 1865-7. Initially a branch of the Home Office, it was transferred to the Privy Council in 1866 and its name was changed to the Veterinary Department four years later. When cattle plague had been eradicated, staff continued to administer a series of acts to control other diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease, pleuropneumonia, sheep scab and glanders.
An innovation introduced in 1875 was a return of the number of places in Great Britain upon which contagious or infectious disease had been reported to exist during the week and the number of animals attacked. The Veterinary Department prepared this list weekly and published it in the London Gazette.
Reporting on the year 1876, Professor Brown drew attention to the prevalence of foot-and-mouth disease on the Continent, as evidenced by the fact that 9,359 animals thus affected had landed in this country.As the disease was still more or less endemic in Great Britain the report did not seem to cause undue alarm.
The Professor noted that the actions of local authorities seemed to be having some effect in controlling pleuro-pneumonia and it was finally eradicated in 1898, after being allowed to spread unchecked for the first 30 years, then for 20 years being controlled by local authorities and finally as a result of eight years of extensive, centrally directed campaigning, involving ruthless tracing and destruction of infected cattle.
Generally, Defra favours a policy of slaughter and stamping out to control disease outbreaks, as has the European Union in recent years. This was the control measure used for swine fever, as inoculation or vaccination was considered to be unreliable. The first definite diagnosis of swine fever was in 1864 at Clifton Workhouse, in a consignment of pigs purchased the previous week from Bristol Market. Initially, swine fever was allowed to spread unchecked until the Typhoid Order of Swine of 1878 made local authorities responsible for dealing with this disease. Responsibility passed to Board of Agriculture in 1894 and eventually swine fever was eliminated by a combination of stamping out, movement restrictions and stringent cleansing and disinfection procedures.
See also
Page last modified:
March 14, 2008