A STRANGE PARALYSIS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 106, 7 May 1931, Page 18

A STRANGE PARALYSIS.

DUE TO VIRULENT TICK. A NORTH AMERICAN SCOURGE FATAL TO HUMAN BEINGS. (From Our Special Correspondent.) WASHINGTON, March 22. A strange paralysis which affects men, sheep, dogs and foxes is under investigation by the public health service, of U.S.A. v This malady, hitherto practically unknown in medical literature, is caused by a little animal tick known to entomologists as dermacentor andersoni, and it is perhaps the most venomously versatile animal in North America. The paralysis, affecting the motor nerves, starts suddenly with a numbness of feet and legs which causes difficulty in walking, and in a short time it is impossible for the victim to stand. Then the paralysis usually strikes the hands and arms and soon afterward the thoat and tongue muscles may be affected. In some cases hands and arms lose all feeling. In three to five days this rapidly spreading paralysis causes death by striking the heart or the respiratory organs. It can be stopped any time before the final stages' simply by removing the tick which is sucking the blood of the victim, and recovery is practically immediate. Within a few hours the paralysis disappears without any serious after effects. For this reason there have zeen few deaths of adults, who normally would scratch off such a xick as soon as they felt it. Several children have died. The paralysis is caused only by adult female ticks which suck the blood of their victims continuously for ten to fifteen days. Some potent poison is thrown into the blood. The investigators have not the slightest clue to the nature of this poison. The queer little bug is responsible also for the highly fatal Rocky Mountain spotted fever, for Colorado tick fever, which is not fatal, and in some instances for the dreaded Tuleramia, or rabbit fever. With increased laboratory facilities the National Institute of Health Investigators will make an extra effort to get at the secret of the strange paralysis. Thus far it has been confined in the United States to the northern part of the range of the tick in the Rocky Mountain country, and it extends northward into British Columbia. (N.A.N.A.)