R £ c E : L- 



WITH imCLE SAl.i»S NATUilALISTS 



RSLEilSEi Dece4'ber 2, 1932 



FOR BROADCAST USE OlILY 



Reading Time: 10 Minutes 



A in "OUITCH.iEHT ; And now it»s tine for Uncle Sam^s Naturalists to bring you tlieir 

 story of the birds, and beasts, end great out-of-do .-rs. Today, the no-turrli gts 

 vary their program a little. They will give us a few of the high lights from the 

 annual report of the United States Bureetu of Biologiccl Survey, 



As I tclkod with Uncle Sam* s Naturalists about their work of the past year, 

 I find they have been making an intensive drive against the underworld. 



Yes sir, these Government men of the Biological Survey have roided some 

 more of the hmg outs of that notorious gang of ■underworld characters-^ the rodents. 

 They have descended upon the dives and dens of the brov/n rats, rnd cotton rats, 

 and field mice, and in locolities v.here these ond other pests were ove}rwabundant 

 th^ have v/iped them out by the thousands and thousands. 



The nodoiit-control men during the year carried on more than 250 anti-rat 

 canpaigns ageinst the corai.ion brown rat alone. 



One of the big cmipaigns in the war against the brown rat was crj'ried on 

 in the oil fields of East Texas, Members of the Texas National Guard sto,tioned 

 in the East Texas oil fields began to fall victim, one by one, to that drea,ded 

 disease, t;)-phus fever. There v/ere 61 cases of typhus fever in this section at 

 one time. Ti.en State and co'jnty health officers began to look for the cause of 

 the epidemic, they found the oil field a regular paradise for rats. Thousands 

 of these gangsters were hiding out in garbage dumps, and lumber piles, and in the 

 walls of poorly constructed houses and buildings. The health officers suspected 

 the rats might be carrying the deadly typhus germs. They laiew rats have a long- 

 standing reputation s^s disease carriers, dating back to the teri-ible plagues of 

 the Middle Ages. So, the health officials called on Uncle Sam's rodent-control 

 specialists t ^ help organize an anti-rat campaign. 



The rodent-control men proceeded to make that East Texas oil field a most 

 unhealthy place for rats. To be^n v/ith, they cleaned up garbage dumps, rat- 

 proofed old "aiildings, and set out rat poison. They also spread soil over new 

 garbage de^cosits to cut the rats off from fo d and shelter. 



That rnti-rat campaigi checked the tx^phus-f ever epidemic. In fact, Sri^a^- 

 dier Generca Jacob E, Uolters, of the Texas National Guard later wrote to trie 

 Biological Survey and soid;- 



"New cases (of typhus fever) gradurilly fell off and stopped altogether. 

 You not only Icilled the rodents, bat you tou^t town and country folks nlike the 



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