404 INFECTIVE DISEASES. 



(b) For the payment of compensation for the slaughter of such 



animals. 



(c) For the seizure and slaughter of diseased animals exposed in fairs, 



markets, etc., and during transit. 



(d) For the seizure and slaughter of diseased foreign animals at the 



place of landing in this country. 



Notification of this disease should not be compulsory, because it may 

 exist without developing any sufficient outward evidence to enable the 

 owner to detect it, and its growth is so slow, that non-notification of its 

 existence, even in a large number of cases, would do little to nullify the 

 stamping-out effect of the Act of 1878. 



The powers and responsibilities of inspectors in ordering the slaughter 

 -of diseased animals should be the same for tuberculosis as for pleuro- 

 pneumonia, according to section 51 (5) of the Act of 1878. 



Further, tubercle, though hereditary, is nevertheless much less conta- 

 gious than the other diseases included under the Act of 1878, and it is 

 <;lear, therefore, that the immediate slaughter of diseased animals would 

 go far to stamp it out, though, doubtless owing to heredity, this stamping- 

 out process would be gradual in its effect. 



A supplementary report was made by Professor Horsley, in 

 which he expressed the opinion that there ought to be legislation 

 to prevent breeding from diseased animals, and compulsory notifi- 

 -cation : 



1. Breeding. 



Tuberculosis is notorious, even among the laity, as a disease which is 

 transmitted from parent to offspring. This is a fact with which cattle 

 breeders are specially familiar, and which finds strong expression in the 

 evidence attached to this report. Further, this generally received truth 

 has been completely confirmed by the results of scientific investigation, 

 -as is also duly set forth in the report. Considering, therefore, the 

 extreme importance of this point, I think that the act of wittingly breed- 

 ing from animals so affected should be made an indictable offence. The 

 only objection that can be raised to such legislation, which if effected 

 would prevent the dissemination of the disease among cattle in this 

 country, is that, owing to the present state of want of knowledge among 

 cattle owners, and even veterinary surgeons, of the early symptoms, and 

 physical signs on examination, of this disease, prosecutions would occa- 

 sionally occur in cases in which no fault could properly be attributed to 

 the owner, and that, therefore, such prosecutions would be needlessly 

 vexatious. 



Considering, however, the extreme rarity with which such cases would 

 occur, and that, as in the matter of non-notification, each case would be 

 tried before district magistrates on its own merits, this objection is 

 deprived of the force it might have possessed. 



