The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1888-02-09
Tbs Rabbit Pest in Australia.

M. Pasteur has written to the editor
of the Paris Temps the following
letter:
Your journal announced few days
ago that the Government of New South
Wales was helpless in its fight with a
peculiar plague-the multiplication OF
rabbits-that it offered a prize of
525, 900 francs for the discovery of
| method for exterminating them. Con-
siderable portions of New Zealand, not
less rayaged than Australia, have
been abandoned by the farmers, who
gave up sheep raising owing to the
| impossibility of finding food for them.
| Every winter the rabbits are slaugh-
tered by the million, but without any
apparent effect on their numbers.
Will you permit me to communicate
| to the distant countries, through the
medium of the Temps, some ideas the
application of which might perhaps be
attended by some success9
| Up to the present in combating this
| nuisance, use has been made of min
eral substances, notably phosphorus
compounds. But was not this
wrong methoda What can such min
eral poisons do towards destroying
| animals which increase and multiply
at frightful rateP Such poisons kill
on the spot where they are placed, but,
in truth, to reach living creatures, do
we not need rather, if may so express
myself, q poison endowed with life,
like themselves. and able, like them
selves, to multiply at surprising
ratef
What wish therefore, is that an at
tempt be made to carry death into the
BURROWS of New South Wales and New
Zealand by trying to communicate to
the rabbits disease which may be-
come epidemic.
There is one which is known as
chicken cholera Cholera des poules,
aud which has been the subject of ex-
tended study in laboratory, This
disease Is also common to rabbits.
Now, among the experiences l have
gathered is this: l collected within a
limited space a certain number oi
chickens, and, after had given them
some food poisoned with the microbe
which is the cause of chicken cholera
they died On the spot,
FarmRards are sometimes ravageC
by true epidemics of this species, the
: propa CATION of which is doubtless due
to the injecting of the soil and food by
the excrements of those which are frs
seized with the disease. fancy tina
the same would happen in the case o
, rabbits, and that returning to thei
burrows to die there. they would com
municate the disease to others. whicl
: in turn would spread it But hoV
could the destructive germs be con
! yeyed into the bodies Of the first rab
I bitsP Nothing is easier. l woul'
make an inclosure including certain
space where the rabbits look for food
experience has shown that it is easy t
cultivate in q state of perfect purity
and on as large scale as is desired
a microbes of chicken cholera in som
: extract Of meat With this liquid, fu
/ of microbes, the food Of the rabbi
!, ssould be watercd. and they woul
: scatter to die in various places an
+. thus distribute the poison everywhere
. will add that the microbe of th
+ disease in question is harmless to fari
q animals, except, Of course to chickens
!. aut these need not be allowed to be s
i large. =,
4 do nat Apnbt that there are in tn
plague-stricken countries persons pr!
/ pared to apply the method suggeste
a here-a method which is very simple
d autl which. in any case, is worthy OF
/. | trial