STATE HYGIENE 473 



All this assumes that the Central Authority is equal to 

 the task it has in hand, and that its organization is such 

 that it is safe from criticism. But this is not so. In some 

 extraordinary way, probably caused in the first instance by 

 the panic and rush produced by Cattle Plague, laymen with 

 no previous training fill some of the most important offices 

 in the Board. It is inconceivably astounding that a man 

 ignorant of pathology, bacteriology, and hygiene, can be 

 placed in the position of combating animal diseases ! To 

 these lay inspectors some of the work requiring the most 

 acute powers of observation and reasoning falls — reasoning 

 which can only be based on a knowledge of the technical 

 subjects above mentioned, to make no reference to a 

 knowledge of animals, their habits and peculiarities. 



There is nothing in the whole range of preventive medicine 

 which requires a more highly- trained mind than tracking 

 down disease, running it to its source, determining the 

 cause of infection, the channels through which it has 

 entered, and weighing, as a well-trained mind should, the 

 whole facts of the case for and against, and arriving at a 

 just conclusion. 



What can a layman know about this ? "What does he 

 understand about microbes; their method of growth and 

 spread, their vitality, their extreme minuteness ? What 

 does he understand about disinfection, excepting that it is 

 a something based on the application of the Board's white- 

 wash? What does he know of disease, its method of 

 spread, the difficulties and niceties of diagnosis ? How can 

 such a man examine into and trace an outbreak of disease 

 when the very elements necessary for this are denied him ? 

 Yet from the Board of Agriculture to the Local Authorities 

 laymen are employed to do highly specialized work, with 

 the results only too well known.* 



* Within the last two years the Board has been compelled to 

 engage a few specialists for this work. They have now 18 permanent 

 "Veterinary Inspectors, and 72 Veterinary Surgeons in private practice 

 are formally Inspectors, and receive a retaining fee. These 97 experts 

 look after 95 administrative counties in Great Britain, and the welfare 

 of 6,700,000 cattle, 26,600,000 sheep, and 2,700,000 swine 1 



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