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type, and that in other forms the disease is not particularly infectious
or contagious; and man-to-man infection plays no important part in
the spread of epidemics in India. Although the situation will never
at any time be unattended by anxiety, we have reason to believe that
in this country plague can never take more than a strictlv localised
and temporary footing, providing that all medical practitioners are
on the look-out for possible cases, that prompt isolation is provided,
and that supplies of plague prophylactic are available. Regulations
of the Local Government Board, which were issued during the last
year, conferred upon the District Councils powers to enforce rat
destruction throughout the whole of their areas, and the Local
Government Board has offered to provide for the bacteriological
testing of suspected animals. When plague threatens, rat destruction
should be carried out with the greatest energy and every effort
made to obtain dead or dying rats, in order that they may be examined
as to the cause of their illness or death. But as attempts to
exterminate the species can only be partially successful in any district,
the other measures which aim at keeping the home rat-free must never
be neglected.
The measures which have been applied for a wholesale destruction
of rats consists in distributing a virus, over a wide area, which is
capable of causing a disease which spreads amongst the ra'.s. The
Liverpool Virus, the Danysz Virus, and Ratin Virus, have all been
employed with this object. The results are, however, in some cases
disappointing; and another method which has been employed consists
in the distribution of Barium Carbonate upon food and baiting the rats
with this material. Barium Carbonate is a cheap and effective poison,
harmless to larger animals in the small doses which have to be
employed against rats, and the rats before dying generally come out
from their hiding places for water and die in the open. Rats are,
however, very intelligent animals, and the form and appearance of the
bait must be constantly varied. A skilled rat-catcher will often
succeed in killing large numbers by hunting and trapping and the
keeping of a cat in the home, or, better still, a good terrier, often
affords considerable home protection. It is stated, on the authority of