DEATH ENDS 4-DAY SLEEP

From the Oakland Times

February 26, 1920

Bruce C. Basford, U.C. Law Student, Victim Flue and Sleeping Sickness

Berkeley’s first case of sleeping sickness resulted yesterday in the death of Bruce Cartwright Basford, post-graduate student of the University of California.  He succumbed after a sleep of four days.

Basford was 26 years old and a graduate of the State University with the class of 1917.  He was taking a course in law and had just been initiated into the Phi Alpha Delta pre-legal honor society a few days before stricken with his fatal illness.

About two years ago, Basford inherited an estate of some $300,000 left by a wealthy uncle, Roger Johnson.  He lived with his wife, formerly Beta Fogg, a University of California student, at the Cambridge Apartments, 2500 Durant avenue Berkeley.  

A week ago, Basford was stricken with influenza.  The malady developed into a case of sleeping sickness last Saturday, from which he never regained consciousness.

Ursus Major