42 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
disease by house-mice made by Dr. P. Bara- 
baschi, and published in an Italian medical 
journal in 1909 (see Experiment Station 
Record, Vol. XXII, No. 7), it is stated that Dr. 
Barabaschi has found many bacilli within their 
bodies and excreta. Among these were the 
pneumococcus to which croupous pneumonia 
is due, the bacillus of anthrax, that of ery- 
sipelas, those to be found in abcesses, boils, 
etc., and other pathogenic germs. The mice 
with the pneumococcus were caught in private 
houses where there had recently been pneu- 
monia. The excreta of the mice—‘mice dirt”’ 
—drying and scattering in dust, may transmit 
infection even without more direct contact. 
The greatest danger from this source is in- 
curred by persons working in granaries, etc., 
where mice abound and their droppings are 
scattered over the substances handled. It may 
be added that an American physician asserts 
that the microbe of measles comes from mice. 
In houses left untenanted for a time mice 
frequently do considerable damage by tearing 
holes in blankets, bedding and clothing, to get 
material for their nests. The writer has him- 
