The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-05-05
.BUBONIC PLAUUE
 NATIONS MENACE SAYS DR. FUCKER
Public Health Service Officer Tells of Methods of
 Fighting Disease,

Fort Worth, Tex, May 5.-Dr. w. c. Fucker, assistant surgeon general of the Public Health Service, before the State Medical association here, of bubonic plague and it's menace to the United States. The plague. he said, follows main-trave1ed roads spreads along less beaten paths to the remote ends of the earth and goes from one country to another more frequently by water than by land:
 Taking the Hawaiian Islands, where plague was found last August, as a central point,'i Dr. Rucker con tinued, plague exists in Seattle, D. 409 niles away, In california, 2.091 miles distant; in Yokahonno, 3.445 miles away; in Hongkong, 4,s57 miles away, and in Shanghai, a little over 5000 miles distant Thus our entire Pacific coast is threatened by plague from the Orient. The pacific coast is also rnenaced by the disease in Ecuador and Peru, a little over 4,00D miles away from San Francisco.
 The entire Gulf Coast is menaced by plague in Havana, 769 miles from Galveston, sol miles from New Or leans, S24 miles from Tampa, and 92
 miles from Key West. The disease was found among rats in New Or leans no longer ago than March g., 1915. On account of the chaos in ! CT plague exists in her. gulf ports.
 ''The Atlantic Coast is not only threatened with importation of plague from the eastern coast of South Amer ica, but from European, African and Asiatic ports. Less than five thous- and miles from New York, plague is found in Braszil,> at Pernambuco, Ba- hia, and Rio de Janeiro., In the Med iterranean 1ittoral, plague is found in Tripoli, Greece, Egypt, and at Port Said, one of the worlds gateways i Practically all of the great ports oi British India, except Calcutta, are in- ffected. Rangoon, Madras, Colombo Bombay and Karachi report its pres ence and from Karachi it. has ex- tended up into the Persian Gulf. Sing apore, Surabaya, Mauritius, Zanzibar, Queenstown in South Africa, and Da. kar in Senegal all have plague. Di- rect1y or indirectly our country is in commercial communication with all of the infected places mentioned. It
 must be admitted that as plague iT a disease of rodents which travel around the world in ships, the United States must consider herself as ser- ious1y menaced by bubonic plague '' Dr.. Fucker contended that there was no reason to believe the disease does not exist in other ports and that the search for it had been either neg 1ected or ha1f-heartedIy conducted. That he said, applies to the United States as well as to other countries. As to prevention, he said,, the first line of defense was maritime quaran- tino, which might prove a disastrous interference with commerce and lat best 9 makeshift;'' second, rat guards, and other measures at the wharves to prevent authorization or disembarka- tion of ratss third inmunization of human beings. "a weak road to lean upon" and fourth, the only reliable defense, rat-prooffng mans working and living environment. He said no
 modern city could regard. rat-prooffne as a luxury. Rat proof cities and oc-
 cupants of rat proof premises need
 have no fear of the plague, he said,