19 to.] Prevention of Epizootic Abortion in Cattle. 483 



(1) It is recognised that private or individual effort as a 

 means of combating the disease is from the nature of the case 

 inadequate ; 



(2) Knowledge regarding the disease has reached such a 

 point that it is possible to devise regulations which are likely 

 to prove effectual if enforced by law ; 



(3) The weight of opinion amongst those whose interests 

 are affected by the disease is in favour of State control ; 



(4) The loss occasioned by the disease when uncontrolled 

 exceeds the probable cost of the measures required to 

 counteract it. 



The reasons for thinking that private effort is incapable of 

 coping with epizootic abortion have already been given, and 

 the Committee think that the second and third of the con- 

 ditions necessary to justify State intervention exist in the 

 case of epizootic abortion. The cause of the disease is now 

 definitely known, and the difficulty of diagnosis would prob- 

 ably not be greater than it is in the case of some of the 

 diseases already dealt with under the Diseases of Animals 

 Acts. So far, therefore, as the question of diagnosis is con- 

 cerned, it would appear to be quite practicable to compel 

 notification of cases of abortion, and to arrive at a conclusive 

 diagnosis as to the existence or otherwise of the disease in a 

 contagious form. 



As a complementary measure it would be necessary to pro- 

 hibit for a time the free sale or movement of cows that have 

 recently aborted. It is scarcely possible to doubt that this 

 would have an important effect in preventing the further 

 dissemination of the disease, but it would furnish only the 

 minimum protection which the owners of healthy herds might 

 reasonably expect, for there would still remain the risk 

 attaching to the sale of in-contact pregnant cows from in- 

 fected herds. Although it is not at present possible to say 

 what part is played by the sale of infected but apparently 

 healthy pregnant cows in the dissemination of the disease 

 throughout the country, it is scarcely permissible to hope 

 that it is a negligible part, or to expect that the disease 

 could be stamped out by restrictions imposed only on cows 

 that have actually aborted. 



Under a plan of campaign which aimed at the early 



