PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE.

Auckland Star, Issue 66, 19 March 1900, Page 2

PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE.

(To the Editor.)

gj r __It has been proved that the rat is" the most essential factor for the spread of the plague. Why not, there-, fore, set apart a day for the slaughter of such vermin, so that, due notice having been given, all those interested in dogs, cats and fowls can take precautions to keep them off the poisoned material that for twenty-four hours should be freely fed to the voracious rodent. Let a Sunday be chosen, and during the time that one half of the community shall pray to be delivered from the plague, let the other more active moiety lay the bait that shall tempt the pestiferous rat to commit the happy despatch. As regards the poisoned wheat, meal, pollard or grain of sorts, let this be fixed up systematically by the city sanitary officials and doled out to all those householders who may desire to destroy these filthy animals that live in the gullies by day, at night creep out, and, swarming over every sort of garbage, carry contagion through our houses with each foul footstep. The bacillus of tha bubonic plague is a minute living entity—a little rod-shaped vegetable or fungoid body; it grows easily in refuse or in animal matter; it clings in a striking manner to individual houses, showing that the conditions of disease must exist in such domiciles. Rats, bugs, fleas, mosquitos, gnats, etc., all harbour and convey the poison. Now, although contact with this microbe may produce the most horrible and , deadly disease known to man, it is easily destroyed either by heat of the degree of boiling water, by cold a few points below freezing, or hy a one per cent, solution of either carbolic or sulphuric acid, or by hot lime-wash. The wisest thing for the individual to do should the plague declare itself locally, would certainly be to get inoculated with Dr. Haft-vine's plague serum. Thero may, however, be a few persons who will object to receive a dose of plague poison even in its most attenuated form, and to such I would suggest, the keeping of the body in perfect health by unlimited fresh air. constant ablution, plenty of wholesome food, and a moderate use of stimulants.—l am, etc., - ',' H.J.