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Photograph from U. S. Public Health Service 



RAT-PROOFING OLD WOODEN STRUCTURE: NEW ORLEANS 



A cement ■wall sunk in the ground two feet and extending one foot above will shut out rats 

 from harboring places in many structures 



diseases, has led to much and increasing 

 agitation against them, and to the passing 

 of many laws and regulations for their 

 control. 



Emil Zuschlag, a Danish engineer who 

 had studied and become thoroughly im- 

 pressed with the great economic waste 

 produced by rats and mice, organized a 

 Danish society which had a membership 

 •of more than two thousand men of stand- 

 ing and influence for the purpose of com- 

 bating these rodents. The activities of 

 Zuschlag and the proof he gathered of 

 the enormous destructiveness of rats led 

 to the passage, in 1907, of the Danish rat 

 law. Zuschlag also formed a second so- 

 ciety, entitled "L, 'Association Internation- 

 ale pour la Destruction Rationelle des 

 Rats," in which every country of Europe 

 was represented officially or otherwise 

 except Great Britain. In the latter coun- 

 try was organized for a similar purpose 

 "The Incorporated Society for the De- 

 struction of Vermin." Subsequently, 

 England and other countries in Europe 



and elsewhere passed laws promoting the 

 destruction of rats. 



THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR OUR CITIZENS 



Rats have been for so long a time a 

 part of man's environment that he has 

 finally come to accept them more or less 

 as a matter of course. As the result, not- 

 withstanding the enormous losses from 

 them, it is difficult to awaken the vast 

 majority of the public to the gravity of 

 the situation in order that a continuous 

 and earnest campaign may be made for 

 their suppression. 



Rats are quickly responsive to the con- 

 ditions of life in every locality, and where 

 poorly kept buildings exist and food is 

 plentiful they will continue to abound. 

 The householders or community abolish- 

 ing sheltering places of rats and guarding 

 food supplies from them, and trapping 

 the resident animals, will soon have a 

 marked diminution in their numbers. 



They will, however, continue to be an- 

 noved bv the inroads of rats from neisrh- 



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