§ 78. Mr. C. BATHURSTasked the Home Secretary whether his attention has been directed to a recent inquest upon a water side labourer, who died in Guy's Hospital on 21st December last from anthrax poisoning, at which the jury, in returning a verdict of accidental death from such poisoning, expressed the opinion that the Home Office should extend the regulations of the Factories and Workshops Act, which apply only to anthrax in factories and workshops, to wharves and other places where horsehair, hides, skins, and pigs' bristles were dealt with; whether the Departmental Committee on Foot-and-Mouth Disease recently called attention to the danger of such substances, unless effectively disinfected, becoming carrier of anthrax and other animal diseases; and whether he proposes, as the result of the above fatality, to take any action in the direction suggested by the coroner's jury?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe answer to the hon. Member's first two questions is in the affirmative. The rules referred to cannot be extended in their present form to wharves or to any places other than factories and workshops, because they were made under the old Factory Act of 1891, which applied only to factories and work- 954 shops; but I hope to be able shortly, when certain inquiries now in hand have been completed, to replace these rules by fuller Regulations under the Factory and Workshop Act of 1901, and the question of applying these Regulations to wharves and warehouses where the danger may arise, will receive very careful consideration.
§ Mr. C. BATHURSTI should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he realises the importance of greater cooperation between his Department and the Board of Agriculture in respect of these fatal diseases which are common both to animals and men?
§ Mr. McKENNAYes, Sir, certainly.