RATS ATTACK TWO BABIES. ~ Infants Mutilated by Rodents in the General Hospital.

September 12, 1908
RATS ATTACK TWO BABIES.

Infants Mutilated by Rodents in the
General Hospital.

Rats made an attack upon two babies at the general hospital last night. The faces of the babies, each under two weeks old, were gnawed by the vicious creatures and terribly wounded before a nurse rushed to their aid.

There are eight babies in the infants' ward at general hospital. Miss Muriel Pickering, the nurse, stepped out of the room at midnight to attend another patient. On one bed were four babies, all about the same age. Miss Pickering was gone about two minutes when she heard the cries of the babies. She rushed back into the room and fought the rodents away, and then called Dr. W. T. Thornton.

Dr. Thornton found the rats had harmed but two of the four babies in the bed. Their hands were lacerated terribly and great gashes were cut in their faces. He cauterized the wounds and set a guard to watch the ward during the remainder of the night.

Nurses have been bitten by rats while asleep at the hospital, but this is said to be the first time they ever attacked patients.