characters ë PDF, eBook or Kindle ePUB free ´ Jerry Langton
From its origins in the World's PDF #197 the swamps of Southeast Asia to its role in the medieval Black Death to its unshakeable niche in modern urban centers the rat has incredible evolutionary advantages Combining biology with history and social commentary with firsthand experience Rat dispels the myths and exposes the little known facts about the ubiuitous rodentPlague carrier city vermin and an out and out menace to modern man the rat like death and taxes is a certain fixture in humankind’s history Rats are found in vi. Well this was a big disappointment I'm fascinated by rats and tend to grab any new books about them that come out I found this book to be sensationalistic and at times almost offensive howeverLangton is a great lover of hyperbole and while the exerpts from various government reports and academic articles that he uotes at the beginning of each chapter are documented the other statistics and facts he mentions throughout the book are not They are also often stated in such a way as to sound frightening but to be completely meaningless For example he states that according to a 1995 study 10 to 100 percent of pet rats and 50 to 100 percent of the wild rats in any given population in North America carry the rat bite fever virus It's fatal in 13 percent of caes in humans despite antibiotic treatment There are several huge problems with this statement 1 Langton never cites his source 2 Rat bite fever in North American is most commonly caused by Streptobacillus moniliformis which is a bacterium not a virus Langton should have caught this in particular since viral infections can't be treated with antibiotics 3 According to the CDC UNTREATED rat bite fever has a mortality rate of 7 10% which makes his reported mortality rate of 13% in treated cases unlikely 4 And finally the statistic 10 100% is just completely meaningless and meant as a scare tactic It might be a small number of them it might be ALL OF THEM WE JUST DON'T KNOW The fact that one paragraph contains so many factual errors and exaggerations forces me to uestion the uality of research in the rest of the book particularly since it is not in any way documentedOn a personal note I found Langton's characterization of pet rat owners to be mocking and one sided The book is strewn with uotes from a petition from petitiononlinecom titled Don't Take Are Rats protesting the proposed ban of pet rats in Saskatchewan Due to the nature of online petitions I don't doubt that many of the comments on the petition were poorly spelled or worded but Langton seems to have purposefully chosen the most egregious examples of the lot The one rat owner he actually interviews in the book is a goth panhandler who goes by Raven and keeps rats in order to frighten the sueamish He writes of rat owners The ones I met fell into two basic groups the minority were like Raven those who had rats to scare or freak out people usually their parents and those who had rats as an affected display of their kindness to society's least loved creature Although they can all be included into one of two distinct groups the common thread among rat owners I encountered was that they all considered themselves highly if not extraordinarily intelligent and wildly unappreciatedAs a rat owner myself I'm offended by his condescending manner and his assumption that I am either eager to frighten the unwary or I'm narcissistic and affected For the record I keep rats because I find them to be far affectionate and intelligent than other small caged animals and keeping a cat or dog is impractical for me I also enjoy observing their particular behaviors and yes I find them cute Langton believes that you are either a rat person or a non rat person and that will not change I've found this to be far from the case While a minority of my friends are completely suicked by my rats most of them have come to appreciate and enjoy them to a degree that's surprising even to themselves The world of people who enjoy rats as pets is full of eccentrics but I doubt any so than that of people who are enthusiastic about a particular breed of dog or about pet parrotsSo verdict The book is poorly researched or at least poorly documented and while it may provide an interesting diversion I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is looking for anything other than scare stories If you're looking for good non fiction about rats I would instead recommend Rats Observations on the History and Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan
Jerry Langton ´ 5 review
Rat How the World's Most Notorious Rodent Clawed Its Way to the TopRtually every nook and cranny of the globe and their numbers Rat How Epubare ever increasing Rats are always adapting and they seem to outwit any attempts by humans to wipe them out What makes the rat such a worthy adversary and how has it risen to the top of the animal kingdom • Rats have been discovered living in meat lockers The rats in there simply grew longer hair fatter bodies and nested in the carcasses they fed upon• A How the World's Most Notorious eBook #234 female rat can under good conditions have well over b. Oh my god Oh my god Oh my godFor a week I lived in fear of the plague I'm not kidding I now will ALWAYS wash my grains and rice before cooking Grandma you were rightI still eat peanut butter but the first spoonful is always followed by a statistical comment from my husband which i could probably have done without knowing for the rest of my life I have yet another justification for not ever wanting to live in New York City AND holding my breath when the 'wind' wuffs up from the dark recesses of the New York subways I new I wasn't just being paranoidur cat is now the GOD of the house for his rodent repellent abilities Riddley you rockI do appreciate that they are smart and cute however I am glad I have only ever lived with them by choiceRead this book it will totally freak you out but not as bad as zombies