BEWARE OF PUSSY!

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 213, 17 December 1910, Page 10

BEWARE OF PUSSY!

FREQUENT BEARERS OF DISEASE. The cat, it would appear, is the most dangerous animal known to man. "The cat is responsible for more human ills than any other creature that walks on fours legs," says a well-known veterinary surgeon. "I cannot think of one good reason why cats should be tolerated, for, even at mouse-catching, they are excelled by ( traps. | "In nine cases out of a dozen, if a post-mortem examination be made of a cat's lungs, it will be found that they were either actively tuberculous when the beast died, or had been at some time in its career. "How far human tuberculosis, especially in children, can be traced to cats it is impossible to say, but the amount must be very large. "Again, what animal in the world cleans itself in such a dirty manner as the cat? First, it goes and rakes in all the dustbins in the neighborhood, eats all the decaying food it can find, and then licks itself all over. "When you stroke a cat you cover your hands with every germ associated with bad food, and the cleaner the cat looks the more risk you run, for the more recent has been the licking process. "Cats wander all 1 over the district in which they live, meet fellow-cats from houses where there are anfectious diseases and bring the infection home. "Measles, scarlet fever, and kindred epidemics can be traced to cats. "Again, cats are particularly subject to colds, catarrh and influenza, ana human beings readily catch these diseases from them. < "Oases of blood-poisoning from the bites or scratches of cats are not infrequent, for if thwarted in any way a cat promptly 'bites and scratches. "In my opinion, the cat is an absolutely unlovable beast of repulsive characteristics; is a danger to health; and there is no excuse for its association with human beings."