The age-herald., 1901-08-15

Frederick Watson in a Washington Let
 ter.
 The Association of American Physl- clans Is still busly engaged in making exhaustive inquiries Into the question of how bubonic plague is communicated. The last report to come before that body Is from New South Wales and Is made by the president of the board of health in regard to the outbreak which occurred at Sydney.
 The most interesting deductions to be made from this report are that QD The disease was not directly communicable from the sick to the well-ln other words, was not catching. CD The epidemic was caused by communication of the infection from rats to man. shown by the fact that an epizootlc disease among rats preceded the first case which occurred in man. (0 That this was plague, and as soon as the epizootic died out the epidemic ceased (D That in one case at the least the in- lection was carried by feeding of a dls- eased rat
 It would therefore seem that the area LII POSoAplc COnldBfOn Has DeeH enldTBcu and that we have not alone to guard against plague infection from rodents but also from the fieas which feed upon these contaminated animals The obser- vations of Dr. Thompson led him further to decide that bubonic plague is primarily a rat disease and that 1t Is communicated from rats to other animals.
 This. of course, is in direct contra ventlon of the theory just advanced by pr. Alexander Ellington of Cape Town, who after making extensive observations as to the causes of the outbreak of plague there. declares that rat plague is distinctly different disease from human plague and Is caused by diff ferent microbe. Dr. Ellington proceeds to illustrate his hypothesis by showing that a babboon inoculated with ten drops of a culture of the rat-plague bacillus showed absolutely no effects from the inocula- ton. From this Dr. Ellington assumes that the rat bacillus Is not pathogenic to man and from this decides that there is no ground for the theory that rats are one of the agents by which the bu- bonic plague is disseminated.
 This view, however, is contrary to the most advanced opinions gathered on the subject.
 Dr. P. L. G. Simond discloses to us the manner in which he believes inoculation can be brought about. He is convinced that the plague Is not often communicat- ed to man by fieas, which, after feeding upon rats infected by plague, are trans ferred to man, whom they proceed to in oculate.
 By the same means the disease is con veyed from rat to rat and to other sus- ceptible animals, particularly cats
 The minute puncture made by the flea usually leaves no mark, but in a few cases, what Is known as phlyctenule or bleb. Such lesions Dr. Simond observed in seven cases of plague. Several fieas taken from infected rats were examined. and in one bacillus pestis was demon strated. 1t being identified by the result of inoculation in guinea pig.
 Nine distinct kinds of fieas taken from rats have been classified by the govern ment entomologist, MT. Walter w Trog- gart. The first of these is the Pulex Ser ratsceps or common cat and dog flea, known as the common house flea of the United States Of this flea, United States Entomologtst L. o. Howard says: What Is supposed to be the human flea in the United States is the common cosmopoli- tan flea of the dog and cat Purex Ser raticeps IS said by Newman not to bite <<<<<@<<%<<<<<