Bisbee daily review., 1914-07-10
UNCLE SAM. RAT CATCHER.

UNCLE SAM; RAT CATCHER.
 New Orleans is engaged in the biggest rat hunt ever conducted in America The whole population busy with traps guns. clubs poison and fire Tens of thousands have killed and the is far from ended. The termination the rodents considered of such import anco that the surgeongenera of the United States is in charge of the campaign.
 All sewers, drain pipes and ratruns being wire to stop epress Buildings and basements are being rat proofed bakeries and restaurants are being screened quick garbage disposal is enforced New Orleans win hereafter be a mighty uncomfortable place for rats.
 Why an this hubbub with Uncle Sam serving as scientific Pied Piper? Because devastating disease like many others of less y1rmence r spread by rats
 The rats carry neas, which in turn carry the fatal bubo germs A flea bites a victim of the disease and then comfortably housed in rats fur travels to anotl house or another neghborhood and bites well per son. Thus the plague spreads through city by per fectly applicable process.
 There is one link in the chain of infection however that :s being given small attention in New Orleans Ger tain medical pioneers particularly Dr. Caroline A. os borne of Worcester Mass declare that our old family friend the cat playing with children and sleeping beside our hearths is likewise a deadly enemy.
 Medical records tell of a baHing epidemic of diph- heria in Connecticut town Che cause of which was long mystery. Finally the doctors found that from the hospital injecting rats which injecting cats which in turn were injecting human beings
 Tn New Orleans or elsewhere the plague might sim narly spread from single The traditional virtue of a cat-her ratkling proclvty- constitutes her chief menace For she may acquire the infected neas from catches then distribute them throughout an entire neghborhood An outbreak of bubonic plague on a British steamship was traced to a cat which had boarded the vessel at Alexandria, Egypt If the New Or leans crusaders want do thorough job they win kill all the oats too however unpleasant such sacrifice would be.
 hard to persuade people of the genuine peril of ndiscrimnate association with cats and yet there are well authenticated cases of cats having spread scarlet fever oiphthera whoopng cough tuberculosis, plague smallpox ringworm trichiua and many other ailments The that Che cathas been unsuspected has made her unconscious sins an the greater for has passed un
 udered from sick room to playing children bearing and distributing the germs of malignant diseases by means of mouth. paws and fur.
 The "cat who walks by herself is the offender The nccturna prowler alley hower is likely to pick up whatever fatal germs there may be in the cat or raj community. Such animals. usually recognizable al "strays. should not be received into home, doctors say without careful washing and disinfection and pre- lminary period of observation.
 The ordinary house cat that stays at home and keeps fairly clean offers little rsa rule but 1t is best fol children not to fonde her. especially if there is any in fecous disease the neghborhood Her bite or scratch too may cause hydrophoba.
 The Burroughs Nature Club is endeavorng every
 where have laws passed for the exterminaton of tra eats md the regulatye licensing of domestic cats Why they ask should be treated differently from dog in this respect when they really more dangerous?