Foot-and-mouth - A Manufactured Plague

The recently-published book by veterinary historian Abigail Woods is a fascinating history of foot-and-mouth in Britain from its emergence in the 19th century as an everyday ailment to the 2001 epidemic.

It asks how a curable disease which poses little risk to human health became regarded as one of the world's worst animal plagues.

The transformation was not inevitable or a product of the disease itself, argues Dr Woods. Instead it was the effect of the legislation used to control it the movement restrictions and culls - and in that sense, the book argues that foot-and-mouth is a manufactured plague.

The disease first appeared in 1839 but it took 30 years before control measures were considered necessary.

At a time when sub-optimal health for cattle was the norm, Dr Woods's research suggests most farmers thought highly-contagious foot-and-mouth was a mild and uncontrollable disease. Most infected animals quickly recovered and some farmers even thought the disease was beneficial because animals had a growth spurt when they shook off its flu-like symptons.

It was not until rinderpest, or cattle plague, a highly fatal and conagious disease, wiped out seven per cent of the national herd between 1865 to 1867, that views on controlling animal disease changed, says Dr Woods. After a ban on cattle imports and markets brought cattle plague under control, it was noticed that it also helped reduce foot-and-mouth cases and veterinary inspectors won the right to isolate infected animals.

Upper class pedigree breeders, whose stock suffered more symptons than traditional livestock, joined Tory MPs in arguing that foot-and-mouth was a foreign and extremely serious disease, says Dr Woods.

Calls for disease controls got louder as a slump in arable prices linked to the expansion of US prairie farming made losses in meat and milk production inflicted by foot-and-mouth more significant.

It wasn't until the 1870s that vets won the right to enter private premises and impose livestock movement bans. Isolation orders began and slaughtering-out infected stock soon followed.

The strict controls and the financial strife they engendered, marked out foot-and-mouth as a serious disease to be feared.

With chapters on the major epidemics from the 1920s to 2001 and the effects of the Anglo-Argentine meat trade, the book reveals a rich history, beset by controversy in which party politics, class, veterinary ambitions and the priorities of farming combined to make foot-and-mouth the feared plague it is now.

For an academic work that started life as a PhD thesis, this is a compelling take on a disease that has had such a devastating effect on farming families in Cumbria.

l A Manufactured Plague is published by Earthscan/ James & James at £19.99 (ISBN: 1-84407-080-8)