DOMESTIC PETS AND CONTAGION.
By O. C. Godsmark
It is always well to know as much as possible as to the whereabouts of our pet cats and dogs at night, or while they are away from home, especially when there is diphtheria, scarlet fever, smallpox, or other contagious diseases in the neighborhood. Frequently these diseases break out in families, among children, where the utmost precaution has been observed to keep the family away from infected districts; and the only solution to the problem as to how the germs of disease could have entered the home was that they were brought in the fur of the favorite puss, or in the hair of the house dog, it being a habit of the latter to roll and rub himself in the decaying filth of some putrifying carrion. While these animals often fill an important place in the household economy, yet it is well to restrain or even prohibit their being fondled by members of the family while there is contagion of any kind in the neighborhood. When smallpox was prevalent in one of our cities of southern Michigan last season, the police were instructed to shoot all cats or dogs found in the vicinity of the pest-house or of houses quarantined, but were not so instructed until a family of five were exposed, two of whom died, by the carrying of the disease germs by the pet dog from the pest-house to their home. Frequently have scarlet fever and diphtheria been communicated to children by means of these pets.