FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] am much
obliged to Mr. Lawson and General Erskine- Tulloch for their appreciation of my work on foot-and-mouth disease. What they say is quite true. I should like to make clear the fundamental reason for the non-acceptance of my ways of prevention and cure of so-called virus diseases with microbial antigens (vaccines). It is because, although the microbes are invariably present, the disease can be transmitted by material which has been passed through filters which stop all microbes, and the cause, therefore, is considered to be an invisible virus and the invariably present bacilli are considered to have no causative significance.
It has been abundantly proved that, e.g., in distemper, vaccinia, and fowl-poic that the disease can be transmitted by both the bacillus and the virus. One must therefore be a phase of the other. This is of the first importance, for -long trial has shown that a killed antigen (vaccine)" of the, virus Phase is a feeble preventive, while a.live virus phase is a danger- ous one—very dangerous in some cases—while the dead bacillary phase, if properly grown and manufactured, is a powerful and perfectly safe antigen for prevention and cure.
By recent experiments I have been able to grow the bacilli from the virus phase of foot-and-mouth disease, return the bacillus to the virus phase, pass it through a filter proved to stop the bacillary phase and grow the bacillus again. The true nature of viruses is thus completely and irrefutably dis- covered and a safe method of prevention and cure of this virus disease produced.
The bacillary phase antigen has, as I showed long ago in fowl-pox, been a potent method of prevention and cure of foot- and-mouth disease ; animals inoculated beforehand and exposed to dire infection for days coming through safely, while the diseased, if treated when it first appears, come through without loss of condition in a few days.
It has been estimated that the farming industry of this country lost L14,000,000 from disease of cattle and fowl in 1937. ,If my methods of prevention and cure were universally adopted 90 per cent. of this loss could be avoided and a resistant race of cattle and fowl .produced.—Yours truly, W. M. CROFTON..
22 Park Square East, Regents Park, -N.W.r.
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