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Show USE COGS TO FIGHT PLAGUE Madras Officials have Recourse to Novel Methods In Combating Dread Disease. A Mysore corresyjondent, writing to the London Daily Graphic, states that In that part of Madras plague has been rife. There were in one district 820 deaths in three months. Innoculation will not stamp out plague; it merely affords temporary protection to man, he says. "To get rid of plague we must get rid of plague-infected fleas. The government measures are, when dead rats are found in a house, to cause it to be evacuated and take off the roof. The plague-infected rats, finding no food or shelter in the house, make for the next houses, and carry infection with them. The infected fleas that have escaped from the bodies of the dead rats are still let in the house, and it takes months to destroy them, as all disinfectives have so far proved of little use. "We have had dead rats in my bungalow, and in the different houses on the mine, on six different occasions. occa-sions. When a dead rat is found in any house I have the body taken up with a pair of tongs, saturated with kerosene oil, and burnt. I turn in three or four degs, and keep them in the house till evening. The infected fleas get into the hair of the dogs. The dogs are taken out in the evening, rubbed over with common castor oil (which instantly kills the fleas, as it . clogs their breathing apparatus), and washed with carbolic coap. This I repeat for three, or four days. At nights I place plenty of rat food in the room, to attract the rats, and set wire traps. "I have thus destroyed hundreds of rats which have been plague-infected, and also got rid of the fleas, which are the chief source of danger. Dogs are immune from plague. I consider the dog the most valuable preventive of plague, for not only does he kill more rats than a cat, but he also traps the plague-infected fleas. I think my experiment is worth repeating." |