

THE FLEA AND BUBONIC PLAGUE 
Nearby are two models showing unsanitary and sanitary conditions 
onasmallfarm. In one, pools of stagnant water and uncovered manure 
heaps and general uncleanliness favor the breeding of mosquitoes and 
flies, while the open doors and windows give these insects free access to 
the house. In the other, the swampy land is drained and cultivated, the 
windows screened, the shallow dug well replaced by a driven well; the 
conditions are sanitary, and health and prosperity replace sickness and 
poverty. 
Various types of traps for larvee and adult flies are shown with models 
illustrating how fly-breeding may be prevented, how human wastes may 
be protected from their access, and how manure may be cared for so 
as not to be a medium for breeding flies. 
A wall case on the right of the entrance to the hall shows a group of 
the natural enemies of the fly: the cock, phebe, swifts, the bat, spiders 
and centipedes, in characteristic surroundings as they may be seen in 
the corner of a New York State farm on a late August afternoon. 
The relation of the flea and the rat to the terrible disease bubonic 
plague is illustrated in considerable detail. Wall charts 
The Flea _—_—— picture the spread of the great historic epidemics of this 
and Bubonic : ; ; 
Plague disease, and reproductions of sixteenth and seventeenth 
century drawings show with what terror the Black Death 
was regarded in pre-scientific days. The chief carrier of the disease, the 
flea, is shown in a remarkable model, 120 times the length of the actual in- 
sect, and having the bulk of 1,728,000 fleas, prepared by Ignaz Matausch. 
Specimens of some of the principal animals which harbor the plague 
germ and serve as reservoirs from which it is carried by the flea to man 
(the black, brown and roof rats, the wood rat and the California ground 
squirrel) are shown, and the manner in which the disease is disseminated 
is illustrated by a copy of a corner of a rat-infested house in California. 
The original from which this was copied, as well as many of the rats 
and squirrels, were obtained through the courtesy of the U. 8. Public 
Health Service of Washington. A habitat group shows a typical 
family of ground squirrels on a rocky hillside in central California, 
during the breeding season in May. Preventive measures used against 
the plague are illustrated by models of a farm with buildings rat-proofed, 
of a rat-killing squad, equipped for work in San Francisco, of a ship at 
dock with rat-guards to prevent the access of rats to the shore, and by 
specimens of various types of rat traps. 
In a window case are shown various stages of the common mosquito, 
Culex, as well as of Anopheles, the carrier of malaria, and Aedes, which 
is responsible for the spread of yellow fever. In the same case are 
specimens of other insect carriers, such as the flea, the bedbug and the 
