BLOOD POISONING FROM BITE OF A RAT.

Thames Advertiser, Volume XVI, Issue 5283, 28 September 1885, Page 3

BLOOD POISONING FROM BITE OF A RAT.

It is a well-known fact.that .rate are addiotod to attempts to suckle from. tho breasts of women who are nursing infante, but it is, perhaps, not.so well-known that these rodents, aro capable /of inflicting dangerous injuries by their bites. A woman in Victoria-street, East, Auckland, has recently been a victim, however, .which confirms the theory that the bites of these animals convey blood poisoning. She was in'b'ed with her infant of about a fortnight old, and a child of about a year, and α-nalf,'when she was disturbed by .finding a,fat , crawling towards her breast,'she moved, and the rat in eecaping bit her face, ;It also bit the young child (not the infant), who was beside her. The woman , at first took no notice of the scratch which the rat left on her face, but in a few days, her head swelled up to an abnormal size,, and presented all the appearances of blo'od-poisonipg. Singularly enough, the child who was bitten presents nono of thoso iippoarances, nor has any swelling taken place. Probably some poisonous matter/or putrid stuff was on the rat's teeth when it;bit the woman, and that, by tho contact, it: had been cleaned off, and thus could not affect the child.