ANTI=RAT CRUSADE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 92, 11 January 1908, Page 5

ANTI=RAT CRUSADE.

rodents as DISSEMINATORS OF DISEASE. . 01 TELEOttiPn—FBES3 ASSOCIATION' —COrYUIOHT. London, January 9. Sir James Crichton-Browne, M.D., is forming an influential association for the extermination of rats. Several methods will bo experimented with. Cases of plague have been latoly in. ! Algiers, in Marseilles, and in Dunkirk, which is coming pretty near to England; so, no doubt, tho main motivo of tho present crusade is to guard against plague. "Ono of the greatest scandals upon tho earth at the present moment," says a recent publication, ' ! is the fact that though tho transmission of the microbe of plague by fleas from l'nts to men has now been finally proved, and though the disease is in this and in other ways preventable, public opinion has not yet been roused to compel effective action against this most deadly and widespread 'malady, which, during the past year, has committed the most ghastly ravages in the great laud at India, for which we are responsible." In one of his latest speeches, Mr. Morloy, Secretary for India, dealing with the rat as a pla"iio-c'arricr, said"ln Irving to remedy plii"ue in India, you have to encountor tremendous habits and prejudices. Suppose you find plague is conveyed (some think it is) bv a flea upon a rat, and suppose you are dealing with a population who object to tho taking away of life, you see at oneo the first tiling that 'would occur to you is countered."