Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1911. RATS, FLEAS AND PLAGUE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10254, 2 June 1911, Page 4

Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 2, 1911. RATS, FLEAS AND PLAGUE.

In view of the outbreak of plague in Auckland, the Health Department is wisely adopting precautionary measures in. all the chies centres of the Dominion. It has 'been established, almost beyond doubt, that the plague infection lias been disseminated by rats, and it is natural, therefore, that a. crusade ishould be set up against these vermin. The rat is one of the .greatest predatory fiends we have in New Zealand. It is neither use nor ornament. Occasionally it may confer a public service by acting the part of a scavenger, and by •consuming refuse which otherwise imight prove a menace to health. Generally speaking, however, iffc has no place in "the scheme of domestic economy, other than to provide exercise foil- the household feline and var-iation-to< the monotony of the housewife. Most ipeople will be at a. loss to know liow the rodent can disseminate the germs of plague. Dr Petrio, of the Lister Institute, has offered the explanation. He has demonstrated; that the rat is the host of fleas, and that it is, in reality, the flea which conveys the infection. This intakes the terror of the plague the anore acute, for the flea is a parasite which lias the unhappy knack of snaking the acquaintance of the human -specie when there is no other form of animal life to prey upon. If, then, the rats are destroyed and the fleas are allowed to survive, what is more natural than that they should transfer their affections and their plague-germs to human kind? Logically, some would argue that a preventive would be to ibreed' rats,

[ that they might afford .shelter for \ the flea* Someone lias written that

"Big fleas Slave little fleas upon their backs to bite'em ; Little fleas have lesser fleas—audi so, ad infinitum."

The moral of this is frequently applied to society, but, in. its literal sense, it conveys a. depth of meaning and a world of possibilities. The. practical way to cope with the problem would , not only to destroy the rat, but to incinerate it as. soon after death as possible, so that the parasites may die with it. A crusade against flea* seems almost as necessary as that against rats. There is comfort in the reflection, however, that of the four hundred species of fleas known to exist, only one or two have, up to the present, been known to disseminate plague. It is quite evident that they have the plague flea in Auckland, and it would be well to pursue the parasite with relentless vigour.