Plague / Its Cause and the Manner of its Extension, Its Menace, Its Control and Suppression, Its Diagnosis and Treatment

by Thomas Wright Jackson

If captured alive they are killed and then promptly immersed. The mixture must be well shaken or stirred when used, as it separates upon standing. The immersion is, of course, for the purpose of destroying any fleas which may be present upon the captured rat.

A paper tag showing the date and the exact location of the place of capture, with the name or group number of the rat catcher, is next affixed to a foot or to the tail of the rat and firmly tied upon the same, where it remains until the rat cadaver is finally disposed of. This tag is a card of strong Manila paper and the record upon it is made with an ordinary lead-pencil, as both ink and indelible pencil marks are apt to become illegible from wetting, whereas lead-pencil marks are little affected thereby.

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.