No. 4.] RATS AND RAT RIDDANCE. 229 



arsenic, ground very fine, six drops of oil of rhodium, eight 

 drops of oil of caraway; mix them all well together, and make 

 them into a stiff paste with two or three spoonfuls of milk 

 (over 6 per cent of arsenic in this) ; then cut into pills about the 

 size of peas, and lay them where the vermin frequent.^ 



Johnson says that the following mixture is effective, and that 

 rats never refuse it if first fed and left unmolested until they 

 become bold and unsuspicious. A handful of good oatmeal 

 mixed with a handful of newly ground malt and an ounce or an 

 ounce and one-half of arsenic (about 19 per cent); make into 

 dough and then into pills the size of a pea, and throw carelessly 

 into rat holes. One of these pills carelessly twisted up in a 

 piece of paper is said to rarely fail of its object.^ 



Arsenic, corn meal and eggs: mix twelve parts by weight of 

 corn meal and one part of arsenic into a thick dough with 

 white of eggs. 



Arsenic and fish: this is a combination used by professional 

 rat killers and is very effective where rats will eat it. Care 

 should be taken not to handle the fish or arsenic unless the rats 

 are accustomed to take readily food which has been handled. 

 About half a gill of finely powdered arsenic may be thoroughly 

 mixed with a quart of ground fish. A small fish split open, 

 arsenic rubbed in the cut with a stick and the fish sewed up, 

 may deceive some over-cautious rat. Poisoned fish must be 

 kept out of reach of dogs, cats and birds. 



Arsenic and milk: Mr. E. H. Reihl in Colman's "Rural 

 World" gives the following plan to clear a barn of rats: each 

 evening after the cows are milked a little fresh milk is placed 

 in a shallow pan where the rats can get it easily. This is con- 

 tinued for a week or more, until the rats get bold, then arsenic 

 is mixed with the milk. Care should be used that no animals 

 or children have access to the barn.^ 



Official arsenical rat poison: as this goes to press I have 

 received from Passed Assistant Surgeon J. R. Hurley of the 

 Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United 

 States the following formula, which the department has been 

 using in San Francisco and which, so Surgeon Hurley informs 



> Rodwell, James, The Rat, 1858, pp. 256-259. 



2 Johnson, T. B., The Gamekeepers' Directory, 1851, p. 45. 



' Colman's Rural World, Vol. 61, 1908. p. 27. 



