§ Mr. GROVESasked the Minister of Agriculture what results of value to the community were made in the course of experiments upon living animals performed in 1932 on the instructions of his Department?
§ Mr. ELLIOTLive animals were employed in the diagnosis of obscure cases of foot-and-mouth disease and swine fever and in the diagnosis of anthrax, swine erysipelas, contagious abortion, tuberculosis, rabies (suspected), haemorrhagic septicaemia of cattle, fowl cholera, fowl plague, fowl typhoid, bacillary diarrhoea, fowl pox, salmonella (infection) of ducklings, entero-hepatitis of turkeys, and in various obscure diseases of cattle, pigs and poultry. Animals were necessarily used in the preparation of the vaccines against fowl pox and tropical piroplasmosis and anaplasmosis (for the purpose of the export trade in pedigree cattle), for testing these vaccines and those employed to protect animals against tuberculosis (B.C.G.), contagious abortion, fowl typhoid and fowl pox, and for testing the potency of foot-and-mouth disease sera. Experimental inoculations were employed for differentiating foot-and-mouth disease viruses, partly to aid in tracing the connection between field outbreaks and 759W partly to advance the development of practical measures of immunisation. Experimental work with bovine contagious abortion enabled progress to be made in tracing the distribution and persistence of infection in the bovine body, and in working towards a production of suitable dead or attenuated vaccines. Advances were made in our knowledge of the differentiation of rabies-like diseases and in our knowledge of fowl pox, the B.C.G. vaccine for tuberculosis, Newcastle disease of fowls and salmonella infection of ducks and fowls. Further light was thrown on the relation of worm infestation to the invasion of the body by harmful bacteria, and also on the development in lambs of an immunity to parasitic gastro-enteritis. Progress was made in tracing the life history of syngamus, the gape worm of chicks, and useful results were obtained in the experimental drug treatment of parasitic gastro-enteritis of lambs.