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Show PLAGUE ON COAST VICTIM SUPPOSED TO HAVE CONTRACTED CON-TRACTED DISEASE HANDLING GROUND SQUIRRELS. Vigorous Effort Will Be Made By the Health Officials to Exterminate These Infection Carrying Rodents. Sacramento, Cal. The discovery a few days ago of an authenticated case of bubonic plague in Sunola, Alameda county, has inspired the state board of health to renewed activity in the campaign against the ground squirrel in that and adjacent counties. At a meeting of the board it was decided de-cided to prosecute the work with more vigor than heretofore in an effort to exterminate these infection-carrying rodents. Joseph Mendoza, the youth who is ill with the plague in the Alameda hospital, hos-pital, is supposed to have contracted the disease through eating or handling infected squirrels killed by him on a hunting trip. Thousands of squirrels have been killed or caught by hunters in the employ em-ploy of the marine hospital service, and bacteriological examination has demonstrated the existence of plague among them, but not to an alarming extent. The effort of these officials is now being directed largely to the discovery dis-covery of an efficient method of squirrel squir-rel extermination, and some interesting interest-ing experiments are being made to this end. |