^*> ft 



Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service 



A POISON SQUAD PREPARING RATBANE 



These men are spreading bread with a poisoned paste, which is very effective as a rodent 

 exterminator. This was used successfully in New Orleans in 1914 when a plague epidemic 

 threatened. 



totaled seven tons weight of mice. At 

 another point 56,000 mice were caught 

 in four nights. A later report states that 

 the mice had turned their attention to the 

 seed in. some districts where sowing had 

 begun and as a result of their depreda- 

 tions further sowing operations had to 

 be discontinued. 



Dr. Danysz, of the Pasteur Institute of 

 Paris, estimated the damage from field 

 mice in France during 1903 to approxi- 

 mate £1,000,000. 



HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OP DOLLARS 

 DESTROYED ANNUALLY BY RATS 



Rats have been pests so long that they 

 have been taken for granted by the pub- 

 lic, much as is the weather or the forces 

 of nature. While people are often pain- 

 fully aware of individual losses, they are 

 unaware of the vast total which these in- 

 dividual sums aggregate and the conse- 

 quent need of community action against 

 the authors of such far-reaching eco- 

 nomic drains. 



Denmark, one-half the size of South 

 Carolina, estimated her losses in 1907 at 

 about $3,000,000. The same year the 

 losses in the rural districts of Great Brit- 

 ain and Ireland, not counting those in 

 towns and on ships, were estimated at 

 $73,000,000, and a capital of about $10,- 

 000,000 was profitably employed there in 

 the industry of supplying means for their 

 destruction. In 1904 the losses in France 

 were computed at $40,000,000. 



The United States has nine times the 

 combined area of the three countries 

 mentioned, and investigations indicate 

 that the direct annual losses sustained 

 here undoubtedly equal, if they do not 

 exceed, $200,000,000, with a great ad- 

 ditional sum in indirect losses, including 

 the effect on the public health and com- 

 merce from the diseases carried by rats, 

 and the necessary expenditures in com- 

 bating them. The foregoing figures are 

 based on pre-war prices and are vastly 

 greater under present valuations. 



In Europe, about 1907, after careful 



