PLAGUE FLEAS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43096, 23 May 1907, Page 4

PLAGUE FLEAS.

Tn view of the plague scare in- Auckland it is -interesting to note that in his presidential address at the meeting of the Royal Society at Sydney a few days ago Professor Anderson Stuart quoted an extract as showing how, beyond all reasonable doubt, the rat flea had been- proven to be tbe carrier of plague from rat to man. “Of 24-7 oa,uighit,” says the report, “60 per Cent.'were human, 34 per cent were rat fleas, and 1 .6 per cent cat i flees-. Of 85 human fleas dissected, only one bad’ bacilli in its stomach, of 77 rat fleas 23 -were infected, but tbe four eat fleas had no -bacilli at all. It is thus dear that the rat fleas are the main carriers of bacilli. Clearly also, it is not an air-borne infection. Thus it is' shown that with a cage containing the healthy animal only ’ -2ini from: the floor in a plague room the animal is infected, ait 2ft above

ground it is nlot, obviously since the flea cannot jump so high!. In the absence of fleas healthy animals l live quite safely in the same house or enclosure® as pkigule animals, but as soon as fleas are introduced the disease. spreads in direct proportion to the number of fleas introduced. The roofs of native houses covered with country tiles aye rat. infected, and from these the fleas come down as a sort of rain upon the inhabitants, especially if tihle bouses be dark, as they often-are. Another, important .conclusion is that the disease can exist in a. chromic form in rats and yet can give rise to* the acute form. Thus the disease lurks in the rat population during the time when there are no cases ' among human beings.” (Regarding the nrooosed coat of arms for New Zealand a sarcastic paper—needless to saiy an Opposition journal —makes a present of the following idea to the Government as an eminently suitable scheme for am up-to-date “coat of arms” emblematic of the colony:—“Arms—Quarterly; Ist and 4th per bend sinister yellow' and gjreein, a sheep rampant argent; 2nd and 3rd piebald, a cheese oni a, keg of butter or; Orest —'Between two “ trotters a pig’s head, brown-snouted, black. Supporters—Dexter, ai goat sickly; sinister, a rabbit inflated.” For a motto, “Buy, buy, buy!” It is .stated by the South African

press that the Johannesburg racetcourse has been sold for a million sterling, to a gold-seeking syndicate, owing to the precious metal being discovered on the well known convincing ground, where boring operations have located the “bnket” formation at a depth of' 4700 ft. Speaking at Moray Plaice Congregational Church!, Dunedin, in the course of an address to parents’ and children, the Rev. W. Saunders said: “We must ' recognise that in New Zealand a. great deal is being done to fill the minds of the children with good and noble thoughts. In the State schools the scholars are largely made familiar 1 with those things that are tru!e. They are splendidly conducted 1 , their tone is ' excellent, the precepts inculcated are of the highest, and we may thank God that the educational interests qf the colony are in the hands of men of noble ideas, and who are determined to put their ideals into ptactica But the Sunday school dan never be displaced! by the,State school.'lt is in the Sundiay school that the child is made familiar with the life of Jesus and early tialugbt to 'sense’ the genuinely beautiful. In all the land there is nothing! quite so good as the Sunday school i