[For the benefit of man and animals (author's transl)]

Abstract

Food hygiene continues to be based on inspection of the "basic materials" which are consumed as such or after processing. In the meat sector, the work of the hygienist should continue to be based on clinical inspection before slaughter as well as on morbid-anatomical and laboratory inspection after slaughter. In recent years, however, new duties have become more clearly apparent, such as care for the welfare of the animal which is to be slaughtered (improvement of transport, improvement of treatment prior to slaughter), ensuring hygienic conditions of slaughter, the problem of slaughtered animals harbouring pathogenic micro-organisms, examination of the meat for residues of foreign substances such as pesticides, antibiotics and growth-stimulating agents, supervision of the product by the hygienist on its road from the place of production to that of consumption, promoting a minimum use (which is nevertheless justifiable from the point of view of hygiene) of water, detergents and disinfectants in the food line and drainage of the cleanest possible waste water. In the field of food hygiene, more attention should be paid to other foods such as poultry, fish and game, and increasingly close checks should be maintained on the quality of those products which are offered for sale to the consumer. In doing so, the veterinary hygienist should be prepared to co-operate. On the one hand, with those fellow-veterinarians whose activities take place at an earlier stage in the process of food production, i.e. in veterinary practice and particularly in the veterinary supervision of large fattening farms. And, on the other, with experts in a large number of other disciplines, who are in a better position to deal with the technological, chemical and toxicological aspects and, last but not least, the medical sector. The veterinary practitioner attending to productive livestock actually is also employed in the production of foods of animal origin and has to co-operate with his fellow in the public health sector to ensure the production of sound and wholesome foods.