Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 March 1917 — RAT MANKIND’S GREAT ENEMY [ARTICLE]

RAT MANKIND’S GREAT ENEMY

Rodent's Extermination Would 8* •# Inestimable Benefit to the Wholo Human Race, 1 The bubonic plague of today is identical with the black death cf the middle ages. Primarily a disease of rodents, caused by a short dumb-bell shaped microscopic vegetable, tire pest hnniliia, it occnrs in man in three , "forms, the- pneumonic, which has a death rate of almost 100 per cent; the septicaemle, which is nearly as fatal, and the bubonic, in which §ven with the most modern methods of treatment the mortality i« -about per cent.! It is a disease of commerce* spreading around the globe in the body of the ship-borne rat. It is estimated that every case of human plague costs the municipality in whLch It occurs at least $7,500. This does not take into account the enormous loss due to disastrous quarantines and the eommerdlsease so frequently produces. The disease Is now treated with a serum discovered through the geblus of Yersin. This is used in much the same way as is diphtheria anti-toxin. Plague is transferred from the sick rodent to the well man by fleas. The sick rat has enormous numbers of plague bacilli In Its blood. The blood Is taken by the flea, which, leaving the sick rat, seeks refuge and sustenance on the body of a human beiag, to whom It transfers the infection. Since plague Is a disease of rodents and since it Is carried from sick rodents to well men by rodent fleas, safety from the disease lies In the exclusion of rodents, not only exclusion from the habitation of man but also from the ports and cities of the world. Those who dwell in rat-proof surroundings take no plague. Not only should man dwell in rat-proof surroundings, but he should also live in rat-free surroundings. The day is past when the rodent served a useful purpose as the unpaid city scavenger. Rats will not come where there is no food for them. Municipal cleanliness may be regarded as a partial insurance against plague. The prayer that no plague come nigh our dwelling is best answered, however, by rat-proofing the habitations of man. Modern sanitary science has evolved a simple and efficient weapon against the pestilence which walketh In darkness and striketh at noonday, and the United States public health service has put this knowledge Into practical operation and thus speedily eradicated plague, wherever it has appeared in the United States.