RATS AND THE PLAGUE.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 December 1921, Page 2

RATS AND THE PLAGUE.

DANGER OF INFECTION. FROM AUSTRALIAN VESSELS. Dr. H. G. H. Monk, health officer for the districts of Wanganui, Taranaki, Stratford, Hawera and Patea, waited on the New Plymouth Harbor Board at yesterday's meeting with reference to the danger of bubonic plague being spread by infected rats on board steamers arriving at New Zealand ports from Australia. Dr. Monk said that over 70 plagueinfected rats had been caught in Sydney, and naturally the New Zealand Government was very timid at the thought of the disease being spread in this country. Bubonic plague was a most horrid disease. Some years ago the speaker had been connected witn an outbreak at Cape Colony, where there had been 800 to 900 cases. The disease was rapid and severe, and it was found that practically two out of every three persons affected died. The disease was spread through the agency of fleas and rats. The rat did not bite people (it was too frightened), but it contracted plague. Fleas lived on rats, imbibed their blood, and then hopped about on to human beings and bit them, this act inoculating the victim with plague. Ninety-nine out of 100 cases of bubonic plague manifested themselves by a swelling in the groins, though the afflicted part might be the elbow or that part behind the knee. In rat-infested places traps should be set or poison laid. On wharves it was almost impossible to set traps, and therefore the use of poison had to be resorted to. There were several good forms of poison on the market. Another efficacious method, introduced by Dr. Howarth (health officer for the Port of London), was to have a board, about two feet square, covered with thick sticky varnish. The Minister had suggested that harbor boards and borough councils should distribute poison gratis to their employees. Details of certain precautionary measures to prevent the Introduction of plague by shipping were given. These included the keeping of suspected ships at least four feet from the wharf, fenders to be used if necessary. Effective rat-guards should be put on hawsers, and gangways and nets removed rrom sunset to sunrise, during which period the whole ship should be illuminated. No other ships should be allowed alongside without permission. In the case of apparently healthy ships the master must put in a signed statement as to the good health on board. The port health officer had to satisfy himself as to the absence of infectious disease, and had a free hand to withhold pratique if necessary. Care should be exercised in unloading operations to see that no rats came ashore in packages. Coastal ships with infection were to be ordered into quarantine for human or rat plague. Dr. Monk thought that these conditions could be generally carried out, though he recognised the difficulty in keeping ships four feet from the wharf, and also the fact that there , was no stream in New Plymouth.

' Captain Waller said precautionary measures had been carried out at New Plymouth. Rat guards had been put ■on the hawsers of ships,' and poison had been distributed round the sheds, besides other general precautions..