Human plague in the United States.
To the Editor:— The Aug 5, 1962 issue ofThe Journalcarried a cover picture of a painting by Arnold Bocklin entitled "Plague" and an article entitled "Human Plague in the United States" by Caten and Kartman. This article and the caption next to the cover picture carry misleading statements which I would like to call to your attention. Discussing the distribution of wild-rodent plague in the United States, Caten and Kartman state, "The reason why plague does not extend beyond the 100th meridian is poorly understood." While it is true that all human cases associated with wild rodents for which adequate data are available have been acquired west of the 100th meridian, and this corresponds quite well to the known distribution of wild-rodent plague, as shown by Caten and Kartman, very limited surveys of wild rodents and fleas for plague have been conducted east of the 100th meridian. 1 Many investigators believe that wild-rodent plague does not extend into the eastern states, largely on the basis of the distribution of human cases associated with wild rodents. On the other hand, plague-infected wild rodents or their ectoparasites have been identified from over 130 counties in the western
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PLAGUE—PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
In violation of orthodox technic, I have selected the broad, general topic of "Plague—Past, Present, and Future" as the title of a paper that must necessarily be brief. I had fully intended to review the literature of the subject before attempting to present this paper, but circumstances beyond my control made this impossible. It is for this reason that so much of what I shall say here is based on personal contact with the disease and association with other plague workers. HISTORY Plague has a most pernicious past; a present that is bad; and a future that seems to say to civilized man, "Your money or your life." It is for man to say whether, in paying tribute to plague, it shall be a toll of lives or a tax in money, and if the latter, how much shall be paid and how payment shall be made. Plague is a