STRANGE CASE OF FEVER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16375, 24 June 1927, Page 2

STRANGE CASE OF FEVER

RESULT OF A CAT BITE

SUVA, June 4. Cases of rat-bite fever are sufficiently infrequent (o rendered interest and of more or less value the publication of the clinical details oi such as come xmder observation. In the ease in question, the particular feature oi interest is that it was caused by a eat-bite. Pat-bite fever had not been met with, or at anyrate recognised, in this conntry, i A European woman was bitten and scratched on the right hand by a bush cat on November 10, 1924, the. bite being in the region of the fifth metacarpophalangeal joint. She tipplincl tincture of iodine to the wound, whicFi healed promptly and completely, with no signs of inflammation, and the harfd appeared perfectly normal. On November 19 she noticed pain, redness and swelling at the site of flip bite, which she treated with fomentations of corrosive sublimate. Her temperature rose slightly that day; she continued to 1 treat the condition herself, becoming gradually worse, until November 's, when she was admitted to hospital. The hand was then in a cff.idition of intense inflammation. The patient was given a course of treatment which is prescribed in the annual report of the Fiji Department!. This treatment was effective and she was discharged cured four weeks after admission.