HOME HEALTH GUIDE

Chronicle (Levin), 2 July 1946, Page 3

HOME HEALTH GUIDE

♦ — THE EAT MENACE ( P,y the Department of Health.) From timo to time there appear in the newspapers aecounts of babics or voung children being bitten in their sleep by rats. Almost always the biting oceurs while the infant is asleep, sometimes by day but usually at night. T'ncovered parts, hands and feet, aTC bitten inost frequently. Why do rats bite human beings? Herc's what oue observer says: ' '' Wild rats eat dead or dying rats with great relisli. They often prefer ; dead rats to other foods. It is likely, therefore, that the rat. regards the | human being, partieularly the blood, | also as food. After exploring the quiet i sleeping person the rat probably starts to eat and if not stopped at once, continues to eat. ]n zoos they have been ; known to eat and gnaw away the feot of elephants, causing the death of the i animals. On farms rats have been , known to eat holcs in the bellies of fat pigs, and near a- slaugliterhouse, in oue instance, to devour 35 dead horses in oue night." In a down-town area of Baltimorc almost 25 per eent. of the people were bitten by rats over a four-year period. Most of the bites wero un important, but nearly 100 people sought hospital treatment. A few developed rat-bite fever. Wliere in nuinbers and short of food, apparenlly, rats will bite people because they are hungry, and they will eontinue to eliew unless frightened away. They are definitoly a chsmnel for thq transmission of disease. They have no beneiicial cffects on human lifc at all. Let's get at them, then. Trap and kill them in every way possible. Get somc of the new rat poison, antu, from your loeal authoritj'. It should be wai to the death against Tats.