Spoiled Cottontail?

[George]

I have hunted bunnys for 60 years and I never knew anyone that contracted it. I think it is much ado about nothing.

It is until you catch it. My grandmother died of tularemia in 1944 after cleaning rabbits. Don't hear much about the disease these days because the number of cases dropped throughout the 20th century so that it is classified as rare, today.

It's a bacterial disease, treatment with antibiotics is very effective, today, but they didn't have them in 1944. Death rates were not very high even when untreated, less than 10% of infected cases died without treatment, I believe.

There are a lot of ways to catch the disease that don't involve cleaning or eating infected rabbits.

Spence

 

[Black Hand]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tularemia
The bacteria can penetrate into the body through damaged skin, mucous membranes, and inhalation. Humans are most often infected by tick bite or through handling an infected animal. Ingesting infected water, soil, or food can also cause infection. Hunters are at a higher risk for this disease because of the potential of inhaling the bacteria during the skinning process. It has been contracted from inhaling particles from an infected rabbit ground up in a lawnmower (see below). Tularemia is not spread directly from person to person.

 

[Erik550c]

Thanks for the replies!