64 



BACTERIOLOGY 



to our modern knowledge of the methods of spread of the 

 disease, successfully stamped out by the public health authorities 

 before becoming general. The disease has sometimes become 

 world-wide or pandemic, and it is still endemic, i.e. always 



resent, in many parts of Asia. It is an acute, infective, inocu- 

 ible disease, and in some of its forms, e.g. plague-pneumonia 

 (see p. 55) also highly contagious. It is primarily a disease 

 of certain of the lower animals, especially the rat, which is the 



1905 



1907 



FIG. 15. Diagram showing the number of cases of Malta Fever 

 among our soldiers in 1905 and 1907. The official order forbid- 

 ding the supply of goat's milk to the garrison was issued on 

 July 1st, 1906. 



main source of infection ; but mice, rabbits, and hares, squirrels, 

 ferrets, marmots and bandicoots, cats, monkeys, and other 

 animals may also contract the disease and act as reservoirs of 

 infection. From these it may be communicated to man by the 

 bite of fleas and possibly other parasites, a rat-flea being the 

 most important transmitting agent. 



Various clinical forms of the disease are recognised, e.g. the 

 Bubonic, characterised by glandular swellings ; the Pneumonic 

 where the lungs are specially attacked ; and the Septicaemic, 

 where the blood is infected. The epidemics in China in 1910-11, 

 and in Suffolk in 1910, were of the highly fatal pneumonic type. 



