PEACTICE OF MEDICINE AND HYGIENE 



The attention of the world is now directed Plague, 

 to the plague, a disease which has been spread- 

 ing from India where it has long been endemic. 

 This is now known to be a disease of rodents, 

 the infective organism being carried from one 

 to another and to man by the agency of the 

 flea. This knowledge has been worked out by 

 painstaking research. The specific micro- 

 organism was discovered by the Japanese bac- 

 teriologist Kitasato in 1894. Five million per- 

 sons have died of plague in India during the 

 past ten years. The disease is as old as the 

 history of the human race. It is described by 

 DeFoe in his "History of the Plague in Lon- 

 don." In the fourteenth century it swept from 

 China to Norway leaving twenty-five million 

 victims in its path. It has at different times 

 since that visited nearly all great cities of 

 Europe with frightful mortality. Until sci- 

 ence discovered the cause and nature of the 

 disease it was regarded as a manifestation of 

 Divine wrath, and combated with supplication 

 and prayer. The work which resulted in the 

 understanding of the mode of infection has 

 cost the lives of many rats and guinea pigs. 

 The mortality of the disease in man is between 

 60 and 85 per cent. The bacillus of plague 



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