Excerpt from The Journal of Hygiene, 1909, Vol. 9 The rats examined for September, 1907, were very largely collected from the infected districts, the remaining months give a truer picture of the condition of the entire rat population. It will be noted that while the incidence of human plague was greatest in the warm, dry months, rat plague was greatest in the cold, wet months. It is believed that this is explained by the fact that the rats congregate in their burrows to avoid the cold and wet and that their close proximity permits one infected rodent to distribute Bacillus pestis-laden fleas to all the other inhabitants of the warren. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.