§ COLONEL KING-HARMANasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether he is aware that the disease known as trichina spiralis is reported to be extremely prevalent among the American pigs, large numbers of which are now being imported into this country; whether he has heard that, in a recent consignment delivered at Wolverhampton, sixteen out of three hundred pigs were found dead in the trucks, while four more dropped dead immediately afterwards, and that the whole of these twenty were found to be full of the trichina worm; and, whether he will take measures to prevent the horrible malady of trichinosis being disseminated by the free importation of such diseased animals?
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONThe Government have not received any information of swine affected with trichinosis having been landed in this country from the United States; but a cargo of swine, among which the disease known as typhoid fever existed, was landed at Hull on April 25, and were permitted by the Inspector of the Privy Council to be removed from the landing-place. Some of the swine were seized by the sanitary authorities in Hull, and a large number were sent on to Birmingham, the authorities of which town had been informed by the Hull local authority of the destination of the animals. The Inspector at Birmingham reports that all the swine have been slaughtered. The Inspector who examined the animals on landing has been dismissed. Owing to the prevalence of typhoid fever among swine in the United States, and the number of diseased cargoes arriving here, by an Order in Council, American swine must be slaughtered at the port of debarkation.