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Show 'Tularemia & You' J. S. Palmer, D.V.M. Disease Preventive Service Utah State Dept. of Health When the old favorite song is sung, "When It's. Springtime in the Rockies," it brings back memories mem-ories of fair weather and budding flowers and trees to most everybody every-body within listening distance. At the same time, however, there is an increased activity among the ticks in the hills and dales to coincide coin-cide with urge of us, humans to hike around drinking in this' beauty beau-ty of nature. These events, together, to-gether, result in an increased occurrence oc-currence of tularemia infection in humans. It is not limited to this season of the year for hunters, farmers and outdoor enthusiasts are reported as cases in any month of the year. Added to this are the cases that develop in housewives as the result of preparing pre-paring infected rabbits (or squirrels) squir-rels) for the main course of the family meal. How does the infection remain in an area year after year, whether wheth-er there are many rabbits and other animals or not? That puzzled puz-zled the scientists for some time until it was discovered that ticks, when infected, could pass on the infection to their young year after year. When these ticks, descendants descen-dants of their infected great-grandmother, great-grandmother, latch on to some susceptible animal (including man) sickess or even death is the result. Now for those that relish the taste of fried or stewed rabbit or squirrel, what can you do to keep off the sick list? The sure cure for this is to give up the habit! But, if you just can't pass up the opportunity of shooting a rabbit or squirrel, especially when they are plentiful, and bringing it home with the thought in mind of a tantalizing meal that will follow, use judgment in selecting your prey. Pass up the one that looks as if he were somebody's pet and not showing the usual amount of vitality. He might be on his last legs and to make a meal on him, without thorough cooking, would result in sickness.. The person dressing this animal would be exposing ex-posing himself or herself to infection, in-fection, especially if there were scratches or open wounds on the hands. So much for now. Next week we will have the same song, third verse. |