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Show MOUSE BITE KILLS BABY Slight Wound Infects Washington, D. , C, Infant With Blood Poisoning Coroner Warns People. : There are occasional instances where rodents, both the house rat and mouse, have been known to Invade 1 the bed or crib occupied by young cliil-r cliil-r dren, especially Infants when left - alone sleeping. Such an incident is , recorded in the death of William Webster Web-ster Jackson, son of Mr. and Mrs. William W. Jackson of Washington, whose death 1b reported in the vital statistics as due to a virulent blood poisoning from the infection of a mouse bite on the child's neck. One night while the infant, only two weeks old, was sleeping in his crib "beside "be-side his mother's bed a mouse crawled j into the crib and, biting the baby on the neck, inflicted what was then thought to have been an Insignificant ' wound. A simple application was made - to the scratch or wound inflicted by the little rodent, and nothing more was thought of it for the time being. However, the bite resulted in an in- ( fection which spread so rapidly that physicians found it impossible to save ., the child's life. A high, fever "vel- oped, and the child died. , Coroner J. Ramsay Nevltt, who ln-vestlgated ln-vestlgated the case, is satisfied that the child's death was directly trace- ) able to the bite of the mouse. In commenting com-menting upon the case he said: "It is a fact widely known among medical men that ats and mice carry disease, and householders should make ) every effort to rid their houses of them - as a matter of personal and public protection. Cats, likewise, are a men- ace to public health, carrying germs J of disease to a marked degree. The 4 extermination of rats and mice should J be undertaken by the local and public 4 health serviee." |