In the long memory of man, the fly-by-night, leather-winged bat has seldom been anything but a creature of ill reputea companion of witches and devils and a portent of disaster. Though naturalists like to argue that bats are humanity's benefactors because they gobble vast quantities of insects, rare is the man who even bothers to listen. Soon, even the naturalists may moderate their enthusiasm, for the U.S. Public Health Service has produced scientific backing for the bat's repulsive reputation.
Public Health scientists got interested back in 1953 after a Florida boy was bitten by a bat that was found to be infected...
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