Plague Threatened by Infected Ground Squirrels
"American Medicine," New York, declares that there is great danger of the plague's becoming endemic in America, and perhaps out of that, epidemic. It says that the ground-squirrels have become infected, and that there is great danger of its spreading through them to the East. The only question is whether the squirrels will die off so quickly as to prevent the germs' being carried, or whether they have sufficient vitality so that the germs themselves will be destroyed without killing the squirrels. All this, the article tells us, might have been prevented. It remarks: "San Francisco's labor-unions elected to the mayoralty a fiddler who has since been sent to prison for crimes connected with his administration. It was he, who, at the probable instigation of certain business men afraid of publicity, not only denied the presence of plague in the city, but punished those who said there was. At the very time that well-directed efforts would have completely destroyed the infection, it was concealed and allowed to spread until it began killing the inhabitants."