Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 235, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 October 1912 — Rats and the Plague. [ARTICLE]

Rats and the Plague.

There is a theory that the old brown rats aided the spread of plague in Europe, because the fleas which infest them are more likely to take up their abode on human beings than are the parasites of the rat This is hardly demonstrated beyond the fact that the cessation of plague epidemics in England and western Europe was about coincident with the Norway rat Invasion. It seems to have been proved in California that the gray rats can spread the infection, but if the black rats spread It faster, we may yet be brought to 1 concede some good in the gray Norway rat peat that has heretofore driven out its older brother.