THE BUBONIC PLAGUE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4309, 19 March 1901, Page 5

THE BUBONIC PLAGUE

INFECTED VERMIN. PERTH, March 18. A youth named .Schultz has been smitten with tho plague. An iuvesirigaCiou made by the local authorities has proved that there- are rats infected with the plague throughout tho central part ot the city. THE RECURRENCE FORETOLD. Professor Anderson Stuart, M.D., LL.D., in a lecture on the bubonic plague delivered at Sydney in May ot last year, and a rejiort or which was circulated tiro New South Wales Government, sard: ••Tho disease has generally lasted, for several consecutive years in a place and, periodically, each year showing such a marked decrease as to give rise to the hope that it was disappearing. We must wait a considerable time before assuming that it is really disappearing definitely. . . .

When plague appears it is always well to prepare for the worst; it is impossible to predict its course, and it may be calami-, tons. Even with all our efforts it has not been stamped out in India, and there are some who think that very little impression has been made upon it. ,But our newer knowledge as to tho influence of the rats may change all this, and there is good hope that it will. So far as we can see the outbreak lasts from seven to eight months, or until the disease becomes more or less chronic among tho rata. Then it is in abeyance among them until la new lot of rata arrive, and then it breaks out again, first among them, and then among men. We must thus reckon upon four months more of the present outbreak and bo prepared for another one next year. We must, therefore, continue diligently to seek, find, kill and destroy the rats all the time, as well in the healthy zone as in the infected, area. This is what the best knowledge of the day enjoins.”