[Supervision of a carcass-processing plant by the veterinary officer (author's transl)].

In Austria the legal basis of the activity of the veterinary officer in a carcass-processing plant, including his expertise in this field are outlined and illustrated, using the Regau carcass-processing plant as an example. In connection with the planning and expansion of this plant, the veterinary officer was responsible on questions of hygiene so that in the course of the expansion, it was possible to implement a chain of hygiene resulting from this preceding study. The strict separation between a clean and unclean area and the enclosed flow of the material received from the moment of arrival to putting the meal for animal feeding in sacks ensure humane working conditions for the staff and a hygienically impeccable quality of the products. It should be stressed that meat for animal feeding is not distributed and that the hides of dead animals are processed only in rare instances. The measures to be undertaken in the event of catastrophies with respect to carcasses are discussed and solutions are indicated. As the scope of tasks incumbent on the plant has been extended, it now also becomes responsible for conducting the fight against rabies. In 1977 alone 3300 test samples, including those of decapitated animals, were submitted to the federal institute. Furthermore, the carcass-processing plant is associated with a station for the observation and examination of domestic and wild animals suspected of rabies. This institution is practically indispensable. A dissecting room for the numerous dissections is also available to practising veterinary surgeons. However, the problem of waste water disposal has not yet been completely solved. All waste water coming from the unclean area is sterilised at a pressure of 4 atü but the question of whether the sewage should be discharged into the central purification plant has not yet been clarified. For reasons of hygiene and prevention of epidemics, the author advocates that a purification plant should be operated by the carcass-processing plant itself. The REgau plant represents an example of expedient and hygienically unobjectionable processing of waste into flour for animal feeding and fat and may also serve as a model for an economical system of environmental hygiene.