Friday. November 21 , 1947
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
PAGE 4
Rats Outrank
Guinea Pigs
In 1 Q Tests
BY KEITH FREDRICKSON
One of the features of the new
foods and nutrition building on
ag campus is the addition of sev
en! new laboratories in nutri
tional research. Girls who work
for Home Economics degrees are
continually conducting research
experiments to determine the ef
fect of removing various vitamins
from the human diet. The inno
cent victim of the girls' whim
and fancv is not the guinea pig.
though it constantly receives
credit for being a "martyr to civ
ilization." A smooth haired
cousin of the aforementioned
-glory robbing" rodent provides
the girls wtih their stooges.
The common white rat has
firmly established itself in the
intertwinings of complicated sci
ence and has been influential in
the development of beneficial
foods and in the field of anatomi
cal research. The guinea pig
served verv well as a comparison
with man in the way of anatomy
as does the dog. cow. pig. fish,
even elephants. But. it was an
other field of development that
favored the white furred animal.
Research workers in psychology
discovered that the guinea pig
was. who would have guessed it.
Stupid! Yes. it seemed that the
rat came down from the brainv
side of the family, for it possessed
a remarkable amount of gray mat
ter in such a small cavity.
Living Cost
Of course, the rat does not j
equal the dog. cow and the ele-
phant in brains, but herein enters ;
another factor. That of subsis- j
tence. Any GI will tell you its j
importance. A rat can live for :
a year on slightly less than a I
Hnflar even in days like these! j
rnmrjarativelv. a dog requires j
about $30 in foodstuffs yearly and
an elephant about $800. And of
course, the eternal question of
living space and who doesn t
recognize this one? several hun
dred mice can be accommodated
in the same space as one elephant.
Maybe we'd better forget about
that darned elephant. He just
wouldn't be practical!
Another factor in favor of the
rat is its high rate of reproduction.
The guinea pig is also over-rated
here. Rats are much more prolific
than their cousins, each female
rat producing from three to four
hundred ollspring per yeai. j
But as the white rat strives to j
build up the population and in
crease man's chances for survival,
its brown brother does its best to
be as welcome as your mother-in-law
and twice as expensive!
Figures from Dr. Sooter of the
Entomology department here re
veal that rats cost the average Ne
braska farmer S30 every year or a
total loss of $3,750,000 to Nebras
ka farmers a figure which ranks
with the state budget.
Appetite
To show the enormous appetite
of these animals as compared to
their economy for laboratory ex
periments one family of rats,
three generations of nine young
each, will consume as much grain
as three steers on full fattening
rations. Please observe, Mr. Tru
man! I wonder if the rats in this
country are considering their
European friends?
Rats are also very influential in
the life cycle of the Trichinae, a
parasite responsible for trichino
sis. These small organisms, known
as roundworms by some, are
found in the muscle of rats, hu
mans, and other carnivorants.
Pigs usually acquire them by eat
ing rats which have been infested
with the parasite. The pigs pass
the parasite and its complemen
tary disease on to the human race
in raw or under-cooked pork I'll
take my chops well dene, please!
Thus do the tir.y rodents have
a considerable effect on the ebb
and flow of the human tide, the
friendly helpful though it is be
cause he has no choice in the mat
ter white rat and its contribu
tion to' science; the unsanitary,
sneaking, enemy of man and ani
mal alike, brown rat.
"You strike it rich
when you choose
Chesterfield . . .
they're tops!
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