Children's Pets as Disease Carriers 



Edith Prindeville. 



Have you a pet cat or a pet dog? Was it a poor homeless 

 waif which you adopted and saved from the Dog Pound, or 

 starvation, or was it a prize-winner with a long pedigree? If it 

 was a waif it is probably the children's friend, for the buffets of 

 fortune which such an animal has experienced seem to indurate 

 it to tail-pulling and rough-and-tumble playing, to promote a 

 sweeter temper than many a pedigreed animal possesses. Yet 

 this evenness of disposition should not insure the animal's im- 

 mediate reception into the family circle and constant companion- 

 ship with the children. For while many of us have lived with 

 dogs and cats all our lives with impunity, numerous instances 

 of the spread of disease by pet animals would suggest a period 

 of probation for a newly acquired animal, especially in the case 

 of what might be termed a waif or a mongrel, whose previous 

 associates are less likely to be known than in the case of a pedi- 

 greed animal which has always been kept carefully secluded. 



Hydrophobia is often feared from dogs, and it is not gener- 

 ally realized that this disease may be spread even more fatally by 

 a cat. A case is recorded 1 of a journeyman painter in Birmingham, 

 England, who was severely bitten in the hand by a cat. The 

 wound was treated at a local hospital and healed, but three months 

 later the man complained of difficulty in swallowing and an aver- 

 sion to all kinds of fluids. He was admitted to the hospital with 

 well-marked symptoms of hydrophobia and died a couple of days 

 later. Bites from cats are rarer but also more dangerous than 

 from dogs, because cats have a tendency to fly at and bite ex- 

 posed surfaces such as the face and hands. 2 Such wounds are apt 

 to be considerably lacerated and because of the many nerves close 

 to the surface of the face and hands the infection is quickly 

 spread. 



The length of time it takes rabies to develop would especial- 

 ly suggest caution in acquiring a new pet. An infected dog may 

 be introduced into a community and not develop symptoms of 

 madness for a whole year. It has been shown by repeated ob- 

 servations 3 that "about eight per cent of infected dogs require 

 from three months to a year to develop the disease." The disease 

 may also be communicated by a dog which is suffering from the 



iBrit. Med. Jour., 1897, 1, p. 1129. 

 2 Jour. Am. M. Ass., 1908, 51, p. 2143. 

 3 Indiana Med. Jour., 1908, p. 303. 



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