The Calumet news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 1907-1938, 1911-04-11
CAT UNSAFE TOY
FOR SICK CHILD
FELINE PET is SCORED BY Ex-
PERT AS CARRIER OF DAN
oERoUs DISEASE
GERMS.

ut is not difficult to quarantine the
child sick with scarlet fever or diph-
liberia, but the family cat goes where
| II pleases and comes when il likes"
This was taken as the text of a SER
mon on animal pets as menace to
health delivered i'm the Chicago health
department bulletin by DR.. Charles b.
Reed. inventor of the "cat gibbet,"
which is under construction as a means
of exterminating the dangerous felines
of that city.
THE principal obstacles to a general
and truthful realization of the dangers
connected with the domestic pet is
found to be the sentimentalists who are
unwilling to admit that anything on
which their affections are centered can
become a menace" says the bulletin.
The woman who refuses TO give her
child a red hot poker as a toy has no
hesitancy in putting into its arms the
more dangerous, because more insidious
plaything-the family cat.
Where the Germs Thrive.
Under normal conditions the germs
of nearly all the epidemic and local di-
seases thrive upon the family cat Ev-
en- where the cat is not itself subject
to the disease it easily spreads the con-
tagion and occasionally does both
Thus i'm the case of diphtheria the cat
not only has the disease itself but also
carries 1t upon the mucous membranes
and in the fur.
Influenza is spread broadcast by fur
and feet. and Hewlett recently has
shown that as distributor of the bu-
bonic plague the cat vies i'm virulence
with the omnipresent rat.
"Ringworms are spread in the same
way, and germs find easy Judgment i'm
the thick hair which the strolxing hand
quickly conveys them to the human
body The germs of typhoid and tu-
berculosis are distributed similarly. as
well as the more subtle and less UNI
derstood germs Of whooping cough,
measles, scarlet fever and smallpox.
This is the more readily appreciat-
ed when we consider how quickly the
cat is given as a plaything to the lone
some child convalescing from some of
the contagious diseases.
1T may be suggested that the same
argument applies to the dog and the
horse. This, we admit, although to a
smaller degree and with extenuating
circumstances. The horse is so valua-
BILE as a domestic aid that its good
qualities outweigh the bad, and besides
in both the dog and horse the posi-
bility of contagion is diminished great
ly by the more frequent soap and water
baths
More Birds Than Rats Killed.
ut will be urged here by the cat adj
mirer that il is of value to man. since
IL keeps the rats reduced to livable
conditions. We do not dispute this
possibility, but the good rat catcher is
rare. The cat catches far more song
birds and nestlings than rats.
Both the cat and rat are undenia-
bic menaces to human life and of two
evils why choose them? The govern
ment scientists declare that the cock
roach destroys the bedbug, but no one
hesitates on this account to destroy as
many cockroaches as possible.
These accusations are all valid
against the family cat, but in much
greater force against the midnight
prowler which devotes itself unre-
STRANGELY to the collection of germs.
the reproduction of its kind and to
making the night hideous with its
noise"