TICK POISONING.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19834, 3 January 1928, Page 7

TICK POISONING.

DEATH OF A CHILD. SAD SEQUEL TO PICNIC. A girl, 5 years of age, died in Sydney recently from paralysis and heart failure caused' by absorption of the toxin introduced into the system by a tick. The child lived with her parents at Strathfield, and had attended a picnic about a week prior to death. It was thought that the tick attached itself to her there. At an incjuest tha assistant Government microbiologist, Mr. Lan Murray Mackcrras, said that the common scrub tick, which frequently attacked dogs,, and in nature was found chiefly on marsupials, was the only variety of tlio species'.which was known to cause tick paralysis. Experiments had indicated that poisoning was associated with a particular period in the feeding of the tick, and that only the adult female tick was toxic. Considerable evidence had been adduced at the University Medical school, said witness, to suggest that the symptoms following a tick bite were due to a salivary toxin rather than t,o any specific organism. The disease thus created did not respond to treatment, but proceeded rapidly cither to death or to recovery. The removal of the tick a!f£er symptoms developed had little apparent effect on the course of the disease, but if it was removed during the first, three or five days of attachment to tho body paralysis would be prevented. Witness said that it was difficult to say whether an animal, having recovered from an attack, would become immune. There was evidence that, in some cases, dogs became immune. It was advisable always to look for a second tick after ona had "been discoveri-d.