Bisbee daily review., 1910-04-03
Does PIagve Menace America?

OBy Caries A. 1. Essa. A M.. MD.
 Former Presi.inut Of :he AIace.
 ican Me6.csl Associai'1n.i
 The plague. the bubonic plague. the Black Death" of history, has a firm footing in .he Uniaed States
 Tke 6act has just leaked out through the Agricultural Department at Washington and has been urged with tremendous force by Senator Owen in his plea for a Naional De partment of health. with a Secretary in the cabinet of the President
 A DisgracefuI Story.
 The story back of this circumstance with all of i s terrible significance, is bad enough. Ten years ago twas March 9th. i9OO-the bubonic plague appeared in the Chinese quarter of San Francisco. An effort was made in the supposed interests of trade to suppress the fact. bu- it leaked out and thirty-one cases were officially reported during the next eleven months Soon reports came that the disease was stamped out and. in spi e rumors to the contrary. similar as- surances have been calculated from that day to this. But the Department of Agriculture, being interested in the health of animals. let slip the informa- ton that the rats.squirrels and rab- bits are infected with the plague and have carried it nearly a hundred and fifty miles inland form San Francisco. There are sinsis ent rumors that sporadic cases in the human subject have already occurred in the country district. and these rumons are be lieved. in spite of what seems to be conspiracy between he SanFrancisco trade interests and the local author ities to suppress the truth.
 An Army of Invasion.
 The condition and it's significance can be best unders -ood if we assume that our country Is being invaded by a foreign army. not the Japanese ar my or the Chinese army. but a host more numerous and more relentless than any human horde that could pos sibly come from all the Orient. It is an army made up of quadrillions upon quadrilions Of germs-and each germ is capable Of killing one human being, This germ is tchnically know as the bacillus pestis bubonicae. or the bac- illus of the bubonic pest It is rod shaped. in certain pigments it stains at the ends. which are rounded, and i, is so small that Literally. millions of them can float in an ordinary drop of water. It was discovered only six teen years ago by Kitasato. a Japan csc scientist. while investiga Ing an epidemic of the plague at Hong Kong As an epoch-making Giscoy- cry it ranks with Jenner's discovery of vaccination. .Koch's discovery of the tubercie bacillus. Reeds discovery of the mosquito carriage of yellow fever and. with them is second only to Pas teur's discovery of the germ causa- ton Of disease.
 A Triumphal March
 The hosts of this army-these germs-cause the disease in rats and other rodents as well as in man. The human fac.Ur seems to have been brought under reasonably safe con trol at San Francisco, but the rats seem to have been less effectually deals with. if. indeed. they were not entirely overlooked. in spite of the fact that their role as the carriers had been -llown for at least six years. By that discovery, second only in importance to the discovery of the germ itself. we now under sand how the plague is carried by the rats, and how. through the me dium of the rat flea" it is carried from one rat to another It is now known that in the great historic ep idemics the "a s had the disease first Mice. squirrels. chipmunks. rabbits cats, pigs. even horses may become infected and transmit the disease. generally spreads from some focus