Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 320, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 January 1920 — FOUND NEW DISEASE GERM [ARTICLE]

FOUND NEW DISEASE GERM

• ” * Annoying “Deer Fly Fever,” It Is Announced, Is Caused by Bacterium Tularense. 1 Anwencement has been made by the United States public health service of the discover by its investigators of a‘ new germ foe to man which causes a disease which has resulted in fatal cases in Utah, the New York - Times says. An investigation has been completed by Surgeon Edward Francis. The germ, which bears the name of bacterium tularense, was first looted by Doctors McCoy and Chapin of the health service, as the causative agent tn a plaguelike disease of rodents. It was not then known that, the same germ also infects man. Doctor Francis now finds that bacterium tularense is the cause of “deerfly fever,” a disease occurring among the rural population of Utah, and Initiated, according to popular belief, by a fly bite on some exposed surface of the body. The site of the bite and. the neighboring lymph glands become tender and inflamed and commonly suppurate. A fever like that in ordinary blood poison develops and lasts from three to six weeks.