Part 26
It was stated by Consul-General George M. West, December 17, 1908, that the city of Vancouver was paying a bounty of 50 cents per hundred for all rats caught. The following regulations for the docking or mooring of vessels arriving from plague-infected ports became effective April 8, 1908:
1. All vessels arriving at British Columbian ports from ports infected or suspected of being infected with bubonic plague shall conform to the following regulations:
(_a_) Vessels shall be moored or docked at a distance not less than 6 feet from wharf or land.
(_b_) Ropes or chains connecting a vessel with wharf or land shall be protected by funnels of size and shape satisfactory to local and provincial boards of health.
(_c_) All gangways shall be lifted when not in use. Gangways when in use shall be guarded against the exit of rats by a person specially detailed for this purpose.
(_d_) All vessels changing route to solely British Columbian ports shall give satisfactory evidence of disinfection and extermination of vermin to provincial board of health.
2. Every owner, agent, or captain of any vessel, and every other person violating or instructing, authorizing, ordering, permitting, or otherwise suffering any person to violate any of the foregoing regulations, shall be liable, upon summary conviction before any two justices of the peace, for every such offense to a fine not exceeding $100, with or without costs, or to imprisonment, with or without hard labor, for a term not exceeding six months, or to both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the convicting magistrates.
Dated at Victoria, 8th April, 1908.
In addition, the mayor and council of the city enacted a by law November 11, 1907, one provision of which made it unlawful for any boat entering the port of Vancouver to be connected with any wharf in the city by a gangway which was not guarded by some person there for the purpose of preventing rats from leaving such import by such gangway.
NECESSITY OF CONCERTED ACTION OF NATIONS.
It appears from the foregoing data that a more or less widespread crusade against rats is being carried on in the different ports of the world, and that the extent and persistence of these measures, with few exceptions, depend upon whether the particular port has been directly threatened with an invasion of plague. It is necessary to state here that the above data are not presented as a complete epitome of measures taken throughout the world, but refer to the ports from which consular reports were received.
The fact that within fifteen years plague has spread to no less than 52 countries indicates that the measures taken against rats have not been wholly efficient.
It is too much to expect that the rat population can ever be exterminated from any country, but by the adoption of systematic measures, such as are in force in Denmark, the rat population should be markedly reduced, and the occurrence of plague among rodents quickly detected. It is not too much to expect, however, that ocean carriers could be freed from rodents and kept so, and this action would confine plague within continental boundaries.
When the existing sanitary conventions were adopted several years since, the importance of the subject was just beginning to be recognized, but now that the rat has been proven beyond all doubt to be the greatest factor in the transmission of plague from one country to another it would appear that the conventions in question should be amended, and the Surgeon-General of the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, in a communication of February 26, 1909, addressed to the Secretary of State, suggested the advisability of submitting the question of the systematic destruction of rodents aboard ships to an international sanitary conference with the view to the adoption of an international sanitary regulation on the subject.
It must be apparent that such a regulation would lessen quarantine restrictions, prevent the destruction of cargo by rodents, and in large measure obviate the danger of the further spread of plague.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Page Changed from Changed to
57 similar or identical to the similar or identical to the affection in man known as favus affliction in man known as favus
57 This specie of Mus is very This species of Mus is very susceptible to a large number of susceptible to a large number of bacterial bacterial
59 Rabinowitch, L., ’03. Ueber ein Rabinowitch, L., ’03. Ueber eine Hauterkrankung der Ratten. Cent. Hauterkrankung der Ratten. Cent. f. Bact., f. Bact.,
144 Universitat zu St. Petersburg. Universität zu St. Petersburg.
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Used letters for footnotes and numbers for endnotes. Renumbered all to avoid duplicates. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Subscripts are shown using an underscore (_) with curly braces { }, as in H_{2}O.