The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1892-11-12
RATS AS DISEASE BREEDERS.


RATS AS DISEASE BREEDERS.
4 Prominent Physician Thinks They Are
Unequaled in This Respect.
DR.. 8. e. Weber, assistant state vet
srinarian of Pennsylvania, read before
the keystone Veterinary Medical asso-
,iation, at the College of Physicians, q
paper entitled 1.-THE Rat as a Disease
Breeder" The essayist advanced the
theory that the rat is transmitter of
some Of the most dangerous diseases
which afflict humanity, chief of which
is tuberculosis or consumption. He
,ited the results of post-mortem exam
nations on more than one thousand of
the animals in proof of the theory, and
then discussed the best way Of getting
cid of them.
DIR. Weber said that nowhere does the
ubiquitous rat do more harm as q dis
ease transmitter than in the farm yard
and barn, where he comes in contact
with the cattle and horses. The paper,
in part, is as follows:
From the time whereof the memory
Of man runneth not to the contrary the
toU HAS OCCA lOOhCO uHOA 40 OuC VI buO
most persistent enemies of the human
race He has destroyed the garnered
treasures of millions of farmers, rem
dered millions Of acres valueless to the
husbandman, undermined houses with
ont number, and even depopulated
whole provinces by bringing the labor
of men to naught. His record does not
rest upon the traditions that tell us
Of the wonderful doings of the Pied
Piper of Hameiin, the important
part he played in making Dick Whit
tington. twice mayor of London and
the just punishment he meted ont to
Bishop Hatch in his corn-chohed castle
ON the Rhine. He has been a pest in
every CLINE, and will so continue to be
until in the development of the distant
future he shall either disappear or
evolve into some harmless, guiltless
creature as useless as the axoloid of
Mexico or the lazy hellbender that rests
his homeless body in the muddy bed of
the Mama river
There is but one good word to say
for the rat While at all times prompt
to take for his own use the choicest
food that man can provide for himself
the rat does excellent service as scav.,
enger and consumes tons of refuse ma
terial which, If allowed to purify,
would become the certain means of pes
thence and death 1t is only as scav-
enger that he seems to have been de-
signed; and it is of record that the ter
rible plaques which used to turn the
towns and cities of western Europe into
charmed houses have been but little
known in those places since rats began
to be among the greatest factors in the
economy of the animal world.
'The plaques and pestilences of by
gone centuries do not decimate the pop
ulation of western Europe nowadays,
it is true. But while they have given
their own stamping grounds . wide
berth they have not been routed out by
any means. 1t is possible that the rats
who helped to rid England of pesti-
lence carried the germs of the disease
to Turkey or to Hindostan. This brings
me to the consideration of a subject
which will at once present itself to the
mind of the medical scientist as one of
the most important ever called up for
discussion.
when the reader thinks of the count
less number Of rats that infest the
regions occupied by human beings, of
their wonderful reproductive power
and of their seemingly causeless but
rapid immigration from one dwelling
place to another, hundreds of miles
away, he must admit that If it is posi-
BILE for the rat to convey disease germs
from point to point this power for evil
is incalculable. When he left plague
stricken London and sought another
field. did he leave the plague behind or
did he keep share of it to distribute
elsewhere?
II have reason to believe that the
rat is transmitter of some of the most
dangerous diseases which aflict human
ity-diseases that have for ages baffied
the skill of the ablest scientist in the
the world. IN. Y. Recorder.