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ing, of much greater value are at hand. As an example of this 

 might be cited an outbreak of plague in one of the refugee camps 

 during the recent epidemic of the disease in San Francisco. This 

 camp covered several blocks and housed between two and three 

 thousand people. The camp grounds throughout and the houses 

 were disinfected and disinfected well. At the same time, every 

 effort was made to poison and trap rats. Notwithstanding these 

 precautions, cases continued to occur, but wiien the houses were 

 elevated there followed an immediate cessation of plague cases in 

 the camp. 



Another case of infected premises proved equally refractory to 

 disinfection. The place was a large two-story frame dwelling located 

 in the center of the city and in a good neighborhood. The yard 

 was planked, as was also a part of the basement, the latter being used 

 as a storeroom. On November 1 there occurred in this dwelling a 

 fatal case of human plague, and plague rats were found at the same 

 time. The place was disinfected in the usual manner and thorough 

 measures were taken to trap and poison rats with apparent subsi- 

 dence of infection, but on January 22 a plague rat was trapped, fol- 

 lowed by another on January 31, after which the occupant of the 

 building vacated it in great alarm. All planking was then removed 

 from the yard and basement and concrete substituted by the owner, 

 the place thereby being rendered thoroughly rat proof, and no plague 

 rats were subsequently taken from that dwelling or in its immediate 

 neighborhood. 



In 1902 the plague outbreak was almost wholly confined to the 

 Chinese colony. Chinatown was made the battle ground, and among 

 other measures rat proofing was enforced, with the result that after the 

 fire it was by far the most sanitary district in the city of San Fran- 

 cisco from a structural point of view. The buildings when erected 

 were made rat proof from cellar to garret. The Chinese had had 

 their lesson, and to their credit it must be stated that they responded 

 with a greater show of intelligence than did some of the residents in 

 surrounding districts. 



Adjacent to the Chinese colony is the Latin quarter. In the 

 rebuilding of this section, no attention was paid to rat proofing; 

 consequently many of the buildings consisted of small shacks set on 

 the ground or abutting some insanitary stable, and were therefore 

 ideal rat harbors. On account of these conditions the natural results 

 followed. Chinatown, on the other hand, which had contributed 

 in the previous epidemic almost the entire number of plague cases 

 during the epidemic of 1907, did not furnish more than two or three 

 of the plague cases reported; that is, less than 2 per cent of the total 

 cases reported, while the Italian colony, including North Beach dis- 

 trict, probably furnished over 50 per cent of the total. 



