The Oregon daily journal., March 08, 1908, Page 25, Image 25

S3S2E3SE
i
1
: i :''
. . -. t . , ... r. v.. - (,."
i
- . wmTT wn ncpriM nwnAv. Iwn-DWTwrt vtinru "fa -- -
I li fe
V
' r. -- -
rsnj
3 3
'Vis
1
RET?
A N
Until It Does, the Terrible Plague
May Not Be Suppressed
r
P I
Port
4
nwl
' I "LI D
CKof an insignificant-looking news Europe, Africa; it haa appeared and di-
uppvareu mjBieriousiy, oiuy io rise again
. "A rwi sent out from San Francisco
recently, lies one of the most star
tling chapters dealing with recent discov
eries of science.
It was stated, simply, that the municipal
health authorities had raised the bounty
scale on rats to a maximum of fifty cents a sands in Asia, that aroused cinco to a
head, as another step tn the way to extermu nnai, desperate effort for rehef
note bubonic plague in that city.
Yet it is not the rat, per se, but the flea
on the rat that San Francisco the civilized
world, in fact is after.
For science has found out that the ter
rible outbreaks of plague from which the
world has suffered from its early history
one of which, having devastated a large has originated during centuries, to which
part of India last year, is now sweeping n,early all the epidemics can bo traced-
i 4 t j ' L-j places which, if it were possible, it might
through .Arabia-, and menacing mankind t we to ;ipo off thmlp. 'They re
everywhere-r-have been due to infected Garhwil, in northern India; Mesopota-
' fleas and thoLratt have carried these dread- mia, in Aaia MinfJUayr in southerjn
little disease arsenals from place to place. Arabia, and Yunnan, in China. Uganda,
It's a companion story to that of yellow -
fever and the mosquito.
To preserve itself from the terrible
plague, mus,t the world now muzzle the ,
flea, as it made war upon mosquitoes to
banish yellow fever?
from the dust of the dead time and again;
naught availed to stop its ravages.
In one section of India, within the
first six months of 1007, there wero no
fewer than 1,000,000 deaths from his
disease. It was this virulent outbreak,
which is yet counting its victims by thou-
Just as a surgeon, after examination,
can place his hand upon the gangrenous
spot3 upon a human body, so scientists
can place their hands, virtually, on the
leprous sores of the earth the plague
centers of the world, wherj the dread dis
ease festers, at times dormant and again
raging in all its virulence.
There are four spots where the plague
t
periments have proved without doubt that this
bacillus is the cause of the plague. But how U
it conveyed from rats to men?
"In the case of the Black Death, we read
'that the disease was communicated by the sick
to thoee in health, and seemed daily to gain
head and increase in violence just as fire will
do by casting fresh fuel on it; that the, con
tagion wa conveyed by approaching the sick
too closely, or by merely handling their clothes
or anything they had previously touched
"Such n description' would seem to indi- '
rate that the poison might be propagated by tho.
breath or by the touch of infected persons; ex
periments did not sustain this theory, and the
RACED as far back in authentic history
as the destruction of Sennacherib,
when, "as it came' "to pass, that night
the angel of the Lord went out and
smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred
fourscore and five thousand," the Spirit of the
. Plague has moved over the earth, breathing pes
tilence and death, and leaving devastation in its
train.
Shrouded in the repelling mystery of is
sable wings, the pestilence has moved over Asia,
t i.
I 1 5iS
.f ttZW
A :
"X'i ''...WW
.1
J
.
' . .' ' ' V f. V'V'.'.'" !' .... 4.- .'" ' .... . y" .
- 1 y':V :
;( U..ty..;.. -
i i
hM m&rfc i prim 4nfir , ,
' 4"S'
.
i east Africa, has almost reached the unenvi
able record of these plague spots in Asia.
From these places within the paat ten years
the plaguehas been distributed to various parts
of Asia, the southern coast of Africa, Japan,
Australia, South America and to this country.
Alarmed by the spread of the diaease and
its ravages in India,, Sir James Crichton Browne
is agitating in London the formation of a Na
tional Society f 0 , the Destruction of Vermin.
Before the London School of Tropical Medicine,
Sir Lauder Brunton. of St. Bartholomew's Hos
pital, London, declared that the flea is one of
the. most deadly enemies of the human race and
the chief disseminator of the plague. , , ;
( "Although the connection - between mortal
ity, in rats and plague has been. long observed,';,
' hejsaid,' "it is only recentlythat its nature as i
been . ascertained., . The trenn which ocoasions .
plague : is a - short, thick cocco-bacillus with
rounded ends .to which' the name of; bacillus
pestli has been given. It was discovered by
atasaio ana aiso oy. ersin. 4 ixumeroua ex-
v 4
idea was first proposed by Simorids that the
real transmitters of the virus were' fleas.
"This theory, which explained the convey
ance of the disease to the healthy from infected .
persons, has been supported by experiments by
Qautier, Raybaud and Dr. J. Ashburton Thomp
son. Some convincing experiments were made
by Captain W. G. Liston, I. M. S., who found
that 61 per cent, of white rats and 52 per cent,
of Bombay rats contracted plague from fleas
which had been fed upon infected rats."
Dr. Brunton described experiments made
by Captain Liston with guinda pigs. Ilis ex- '
periments showed that guinea pigs placed in '
houses protected from fleas did not. contract ibe
plague, while pigs which were attacked by: in-v
fected rat fleas succumbed. ,
In the stomachs of fleas taken from infect-
ed rats were found the bacillus pestis, the germ ;
of the plague. Chinese pigs confined in cages
hung a sufficient height above the ground. to
escape the fleas remained unharmed; those in
cages surrounded by fly-paper, which caught
the fleas as they attempted to jump to the .
cages, remained uninfected. ' '
These experiments, declared Dr. Brunton, '
were confirmed by the advisory committee ap
pointed by the secretary of state for India, the
Royal Society and the Lister Institute. The .
Lister Institute" conducted experiments and de
cided that wherever fleas are present an epi " ;
demie immediately starts in a region where the .
plague breaks out. -- ' :-
CATS TO COMBAT PLAGUE '
It was also discovered that 90 per cent.' of "
the animals examined were bitten on the neck, '
and of 179 rats examined fleas were obtained
from the heads or necks of 65.3J per cent. ; and
finally, that these rat fleas bite human beings. '
Dr. Brunton says : "Possibly the introduc
tion of more cats iii plague-infected district '
might be useful; Colonel Buchanan. haa found
that wherever there are many cats there is little
or no plague.
, "A plague inIndia affords constant oppor
tunities for its spread along channels of com
merce, and especially along steamship routes.
Cases of plague arrive from time to tune at tb -port
of London, and, although precautions may
be taken to isolateithe. sick, , rats ' may become
infected, creep along ropes to the shore, and, by ,
. infecting other rats begin a pestilence. - - - '.
"This pestilence, for a time, might remain
lhniteu, but it would eventually spread alrtmr.
railway lines to all parts of the country.' By.
allowing rat and flea infected districts to.exi.st
in the East End 'ofLondon, we are in "daily
danger of infection by plague. '
The discovery ithat ,the fioa carries the
-plague, asserted the eminent physician,' U
worthy follower of; the disco'ery that the mos-
quito has been the carrier of yellow fever wn.l -.
malaria in the tropics. . Bitten by mosquitoc .
I while traveling in the vicinity" of Suez, in lsC-,
Dr. Brunton suffered from jnalaria for many
"years. He ' declared: that -he had coma ar-ru-1
one case that of a patient aged 3 ycarj i
: whom the v gerpja of .the diieaso h id roraai;:?. !
latent ior thirty-two years. . , -,
(CONTINUED ON INSIDE PA?::.)
- 1 1-
j
i I