The Bovine Scourge: Meat, Tuberculosis and Public Health, 1850-1914 - Tapa dura

A coherent and well-researched account, which should appeal to historians interested in agriculture, medicine, trade regulation and the urban environment. [...] A readable and original account of an under-researched subject. URBAN HISTORY
An impeccably presented study. AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW
Amply fulfils the goals of filling a gap in the historiography of tuberculosis and contributing a new dimension to more recent debates about the safety of food supplies. MEDICAL HISTORY A well-rounded work that looks at the question of tuberculosis control from all sides. AGRICULTURAL HISTORY,

By the late 1890s, the question of bovine tuberculosis (TB) and infected meat had become one of national importance, reflecting a national sense of fear. Although the extent of the threat to health proved uncertain, bovine TB had come to stand at the centre of debates about diseased meat and public health. The anxiety it caused was part of a longer story, linked to concern over food safety, changes in how tuberculosis was understood, and to worries over diseased meat and the 'evils' of the urban meat trade. The Bovine Scourge explores the debates and fears that came to surround bovine TB, meat and public health between the 1860s and 1914. It traces how diseased meat and bovine TB emerged as a public health issue, examines the measures adopted to protect the public, and addresses how by the Edwardian era milk had become the major source of concern in discussion of bovine TB. It also raises important questions about the history of food safety, the concerns generated by diseased meat, and the role of the public health and veterinary profession in preventing the sale of contaminated food.
KEIR WADDINGTON is a senior lecturer in the School of History and Archaeology at Cardiff University.