New Disease

Tularaemia, a newly discovered disease of man, may be widespread in the United States, according to a recent bulletin of the Hygienic Laboratory of the U. S. Public Health Service. It is caused by the Bacterium tularense, which is transmitted to man by the bite of the blood-sucking fly, bedbug and similar insects from infected rabbits, squirrels and rodents. The disease is seldom fatal to humans, but is accompanied by pains, septic fever lasting from three days to six weeks, prostration, swollen and suppurating lymph glands, and ulcers on the site of the bite, followed by several months of convalescence when the patient is unable to work. It is found in rural populations in harvest time. It has been mildly epidemic in Utah for five years, and cases have been reported from Cincinnati, Charlotte, N. C., and elsewhere.

The government experts discovered the disease among ground squirrels and jackrabbits in California, to which it is particularly fatal. Surgeon Edward Francis, who was in charge of the investigation, contracted tularaemia, as did several other workers. No effective treatment has yet been found.