Medicine: Wholesale Extermination

Plague, most feared of infectious diseases, is spread by rats and ground squirrels. In stamping it out from California, where it last appeared in epidemic form, it has been suggested that rats be destroyed by infecting them with bacteria, which would be passed from one rat to another and thus bring about wholesale extermination. On the other hand, investigators for the State Board of Health find possible contamination of human food from such infected rats. Experiments failed to demonstrate any great efficiency in the so-called exterminators but showed that they might lead to the production of a chronic carrier state, and that bacteria thus carried could cause food poisoning. The State Board of Health has ruled against the sale or exposure for sale of such bacterial rat exterminators.