PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. Ae, 
a 
interests are aS diverse as are the paths of natural know- 
ledge, it seems fitting to choose a text that may appeal to 
all. Secondly, the association of these animals from time 
immemorial with man, and often. under tragic circum- 
stances, opens up by-paths of history and literature that 
may tend to lighten a scientific discourse, and to introduce 
that human touch that adds a piquancy to the pursuit of 
knowledge. Thirdly, my official work in this State, and in 
Western Australia, has brought me into intimate personat 
contact with these pests, and it has been necessary to acquire 
local information concerning them from every possible 
aspect. Lastly, animals of such social habits may, like 
ourselves, be afflicted with grievous ailments, and behave 
and suffer in many ways like the races of man, and so offer 
headings for discussion, philosophical and otherwise, that, 
as disjointed units, would partly lose their application and 
direction. I do not propose to deal with the subject from 
all its aspects, but to confine my remarks more especially 
to Australian conditions and experience. 
Special attention was first directed in Australia to rats 
more than 18 years ago, in January, 1900, when cases of 
plague in man were reported in Sydney, being part of the 
great pandemic of this disease that originated a few years 
previously. Before the pandemic died out, outbreaks oceur- 
red also in Queensland and Western Australia, with a few 
cases in Melbourne and Adelaide. As the result of the 
epidemiological observations of Ashburton Thompson, the 
bacteriological work of Tidswell, and the investigations of 
Ham, Australian workers were in the van in elucidating the 
problems connected with.the transmission of the plague 
bacillus to man. Their work, confirming and supporting 
that of investigators in other parts of the world, soon in- 
criminated the rat as a dispersing agent. Since that date 
rats have received the closest attention in this State, as 
C—May |, 1918. 
