Medicine: Plague Again

A wet spring breeds disease

It was as if a killer from the Middle Ages had returned to strike anew. This summer the once dreaded scourge of bubonic plague is on the loose in the Southwest U.S. Since April, hospitals in five states have admitted 35 patients complaining of fever, chills, headache and swellings in the armpits, groin or neck. Six deaths have been reported so far; the most recent was a 13-year-old New Mexico boy who died last week less than twelve hours after the disease was diagnosed.

This year's outbreak is the most...

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