Rabbit Extermination.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 6496, 26 April 1888, Page 2

Rabbit Extermination.

M. PASTEUR'S SCHEME.

(By Electric Telograph — Copyright.) (Per United Press Association.)

Received April 25, 3.13 p.m.

Sydney, April 25 —M. Loir has supplied full particulars of M. Pasteur'B schemo to tho Rabbit Conference. It appoars that during M. Pasteur's investigations of chicken cholera about ten years ago he accidentally discovered that rabbits were especially susceptible to the malady. M. Loir Bays it is impossible to givo direct proof that human beings are not susceptible to the disease, but he states that no case has ever been reported. Even were diseased poultry eaten as food the microbes would dio at a temperature of fifty-ono degrees centigrade, and the virulence of the disease would be much weakened by exposure to the air. There 1-. no danger of the disease boing conveyed bj coW s' milk, even if the animals were fed on poisoned food. M. Loir states further that no animals excopt rabbits are affeUcd by the disease. During tho first few removes of tho discaso from rabbit to rabbit the virulence of tho disease increases, but it soon attains a maximum, aud then becomes stationary. Generally speaking, discaso becomes more virulent in rabbits than in fowls. The answers given by M. Loir to questions asked in reference to the experiments conducted in Franco seemed to indicate that that was only on a. small scale. The experiments were generally carried out by direct poisoning. The representatives of New South Wales, Victoria, and Now Zealand have beon appointed a committee to conduct experiments, and the Conferoneo adjourned, pending the report of the committee.