The rat and its relation to the public health / by various authors ; prepared by direction of the Surgeon-General ; Treasury Department, Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States.

Date:: 1910

Credit: The rat and its relation to the public health / by various authors ; prepared by direction of the Surgeon-General ; Treasury Department, Public Health and Marine Hospital Service of the United States. Source: Wellcome Collection.

202/286 (page 180)

$of the bacillus which, from a biologic standpoint, is the parent stock of almost all subsequent work along this line. The bacillus used by Danysz and other workers is either identical with or very closely allied to Loeffler’s bacillus of mouse typhoid. In 1892 Loeffler® personally undertook a campaign against the field mice in Thessaly and reported satisfactory results. The depre- dations carried on by the mice were checked within eight to nine days. The English commission* * 6 threw doubt upon the Thessaly operations and concluded that the bacillus as a means of destruction of mice has no value. They found the method to be expensive, affecting only one species of mice; further, that the epidemic-like spread of the disease in the fields was not sufficiently investigated, and that the infected material retains its virulence only for eight days and does not permit of being used in continued bad weather. Loeffler’s optimistic report, however, stimulated many similar trials with varying success. Practically all these efforts were directed against mice, until 1900, when Danysz took up the subject from the standpoint of the rat and plague. Danysz found that Loeffler’s Bacillus typhi murium proved to be pathogenic for ordinary mice (Mus musculus) and for field or harvest mice (Mus arvicolis), but not for rats. The culture isolated by Laser0 in 1892 was pathogenic for field mice (Mus agrarius); this organism killed 70 of the 76 mice which were used as experiment animals at the Hygienic Institute at Konigsberg. Mereschkow'sky d in June, 1893, isolated an organism belonging to this group from a ground squirrel known as the Zisel (SpermopMlus musicus). This culture killed domestic and field mice when placed in their food, but was not pathogenic for rats. The Japanese investigator IssatehenkoJ in 1898, briefly described a bacillus obtained by him from gray [white?] rats, which proved virulent for rats and mice. Each of these various bacilli is of such variable virulence that it could not be used for the destruction of all species oi these rodents. a LoefTler, F.: Die Feldmausplage in Tliessalien und ihre erfolgreiche Bekamp- fung mittels des Bacillus typhi murium. Centblt. f. Bakt., Orig., vol. 12, 1892, p. 1. & Wien, landw. Zeit. 1894, p. 783. c Laser, Hugo: Ein neuer fur Versuchsthiere pathogener Bacillus aus der Gruppe der Frettschen-Schweinseuche. Centblt. f. Bakt., Orig., vol. 11,1892, p. 184. ^Mereschkowsky, S. S.: Ein aus Zieselmausen ausgeschiedener und zur Vertilgung von Feld-resp. Hausmausen geeigneter Bacillus. Centblt. f. Bakt., Orig., vol. 17, 1895, p. 742. e Issatchenko, B.: Untersuchungen mit deni fiir Ratten patliogenen Bacillus. Centblt. f. Bakt., Orig., vol. 31,1902, p. 26. \$