Plague: Its Cause and the Manner of its Extension, Its Menace, Its Control and Suppression, Its Diagnosis and TreatmentJackson, Thomas Wright
History
Plague: Its Cause and the Manner of its Extension, Its Menace, Its Control and Suppression, Its Diagnosis and Treatment
Jackson, Thomas Wright
Plague; Rats as carriers of disease
If desired, the disinfected tag in any given case of rat plague may be
returned to the Bureau of Health, for identification, where an accurate
record of every rat captured is kept.
After dipping and tagging, the rats are taken to a central point, again
dipped, and placed in large, tightly-covered, galvanized iron cans, in
which containers they are delivered to the laboratory by cart, once or
twice daily.
THE CASE OF MR. C.--The following are the facts concerning the case of
Mr. W. C., a prominent American resident of Manila who suffered and
died from plague in 1914.
Mr. C., an editor, was taken ill with plague on the night of September
18, sought medical advice and entered St. Paul's Hospital September 19,
and was transferred to San Lazaro Hospital, September 20, with an
established clinical and bacteriologic diagnosis of bubonic plague. He
survived till September 22.
Upon September 21, in the course of disinfecting the business office of
Mr. C., located in a district which had furnished a number of cases of
both rat and human plague, a dead rat, mummified, was found in the
right hand drawer of his desk and fleas were seen to hop from the
drawer upon opening it.
A flea killed by the disinfecting mixture at this desk was identified
at the Bureau of Science as a rat flea (_Xenopsylla cheopis_).
The rat cadaver was sent to the Bureau of Science and the following
facts were reported from there some days later:
The mummified rat and skeleton were pulverized in a sterile mortar and
an emulsion was made and injected into guinea-pigs. The animals died
from plague in a few days and plague bacilli were recovered from the
tissues, as well as from the rat cadaver, by culture.
A second rat cadaver, found at the same time in the same building,
during cleaning operations, was similarly treated with identical
results.
There could scarcely be a stronger chain of convincing evidence against
the rat and the flea, nor a more complete and convincing explanation of
Mr. C.'s death than that afforded by these established facts and
official documents. So far as I know there is no more striking case on
record in the modern history of plague.
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