Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service 

 THE POISON SQUAD SETTING OUT 



These men, who are chosen especially for their reliability and carefulness, are setting out to 

 distribute the poison "croutons." A record is kept of each place where poison is placed. 



investigation, the estimated average an- 

 nual loss caused by each rat was com- 

 puted to equal $1.80 in Great Britain, 

 $1.20 in Denmark, and $1 in France. In 

 the United States the average is undoubt- 

 edly much larger than in any of the coun- 

 tries named, especially at present high 

 prices of food and other merchandise. 



There is no doubt that a very large 

 number of rats subsist wholly on garbage 

 and waste which is of no value, but the 

 damage caused by rats in numerous places 

 amounts to many dollars each a year ; 

 probably $5 a year would not be an over- 

 estimate for the average loss caused by 

 each rat living in a dwelling, hotel, res- 

 taurant, or other place having ready ac- 

 cess to food supplies. 



Assuming, roughly speaking, that as 

 estimated the rat population in the United 

 States is 50,000,000 for the cities and 

 150,000,000 for the rural districts, it will 

 require the destruction of property by 

 each rat of only a little more than one- 

 fourth a cent a day to make the aggregate 

 great sum estimated as destroyed by these 

 pests yearly in this country. 



In 1907 a careful survey was made of 

 the damage done by rats in Washington 

 More than 500 business establishments, 

 including factories, stores, livery stables, 

 hotels, and restaurants, were visited. As 

 a result of this inquiry the total losses 

 for the city were estimated at $400,000 

 yearly. A similar inquiry in Baltimore 

 indicated that the annual losses in that 

 city were about $700,000. 



200,000 MEN ARE NOW WORKING SOLEEY 

 TO FEED THE RATS 



A more definite idea of the losses from 

 rats may be gained by considering what 

 it means in human effort. 



Taking the average yearly returns on 

 a man's labor in agriculture, as shown by 

 the census of 1910, it requires the con- 

 tinuous work of about 150,000 men. 

 with farms, agricultural implements, and 

 other equipment, to supply the foodstuffs 

 destroyed annually by rats in the United 

 States. In addition, rats destroy other 

 property, mainly of agricultural origin, 

 the production of which requires the 

 work of about 50,000 men. 



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