KEPEESSING THE EAT. 33 



subject to the parasite are the rat and the hog itself. Pork becomes 

 trichinous, then, only when swine eat the flesh of infested rats or 

 hogs. Country slaughterhouses, where rats are abundant and swine 

 are fed on offal, are the chief sources of trichinous pork. a 



A writer in The Spectator (London) states that septic pneumonia 

 is sometimes the result of drinking water from shallow wells in which 

 rats have been drowned and their bodies left to decay. He adds 

 further that rats are "also disseminators of every kind of disease 

 which can be conveyed into and from drains; for of all highways a 

 rat loves a drain the best." b What visions of typhoid, scarlet, and 

 malarial fevers, diphtheria, and other malignant diseases are aroused 

 by such a statement ! It is probable that many disease germs adhere 

 to rats' feet and are thus carried to places where they threaten human 

 health. Ptomaines are said to be sometimes conveyed to meats 

 or other human foods in this way. On the whole, hygienic consider- 

 ations furnish the strongest argument for the extermination of rats. 



UTILITY OF THE RAT. 



Except that to a limited extent rats act as scavengers, they ren- 

 der no important service to man. In former times, doubtless, their 

 work as scavengers in cities was of considerable value, but modern 

 methods of garbage disposal make this service insignificant. 



MEANS OF REPRESSING RATS. 



It is not creditable to our civilization that a creature so noxious 

 as the rat should continue to flourish. The fact that it lives in sur- 

 roundings of dirt, disorder, and waste, while it preys on the best of 

 our productions, makes its constant increase a matter for chagrin. 

 The animal has developed such an extraordinary degree of sagacity 

 under persecution that attempts to exterminate it have been largely 

 wasted. The failure of these efforts has not been due to lack of effect- 

 ive methods so much as to negligence and the absence of concerted 

 action. Besides, as already stated, we have rendered our work 

 abortive by continuing to provide subsistence and hiding places for 

 the rat. When once these advantages are denied to the animals, 

 persistent and concerted application of the best methods of destroy- 

 ing them will prove far more effective. 



The more important means of fighting rats are considered under 

 five captions: (1) Natural enemies of the rat, (2) rat-proof con- 

 struction of buildings, (3) keeping food from rats, (4) driving away 



rats, (5) destroying rats. 



. i— , . . . , 



« Circular 108, Bureau of Animal Industry, p. 1, 1907. 

 &The Spectator, vol. 95, p. 603, October 21, 1895. 



