HC Deb 20 June 1905 vol 147 cc1091-2
MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)

To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that inquests recently held on a stableman in the Star Omnibus Company's stables, and on Elizabeth Cousins, the wife of a carman, in Pimlico, and a large number of fatal cases in London hospitals in the past two years have shown the increasing risk of glanders being communicated to human beings; and whether he will, in consultation with the Board of Agriculture, take steps by legislation or by administrative orders to deal with this danger.

(Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) I have seen reports of the inquests referred to; but I am not aware that there has been any large number of fatal cases of glanders in London hospitals in the last two years. The number of human deaths in London from this cause appears to have been four in 1903 and two in 1904.

(Answered by Lord Balcarres.) The-expenditure defrayed by the Commissioners of His Majesty's Works, etc., on Admiralty buildings from 1st January, 1887, to 31st January, 1905, has been as follows:—

I am advised that the risk of the disease being communicated from horses to man is not great, and that it does not seem to be increasing. But I think it may be desirable that when an inspector of the local authority, under the Diseases of Animals Acts, receives notice of the occurrence of a case of glanders in a horse he should forthwith give information of the receipt of the notice to the medical officer of the district in which the horse is or was, and I will communicate with my right hon. friend the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries on the subject.