Laboratory Infections in Relation to the Question of Etiology and Epidemiology of Epidemic Typhus Fever and Trench Fever,
Abstract
More than four kinds of 'laboratory rickettsioses' are reported, in which rickettsia can be detected in the blood by louse-test. The hypothesis of an up-take of rickettsia was afforded by the maintenance of numerous strains of rickettsia in diverse laboratory animals, the pre-conditions for detection were afforded by the permanent maintenance of a colony of normal lice. The diseases afflicted persons who at one time or another had had typhus. It was a question either of recurrence or of re-infection with rickettsia. The clinical symptoms can be explained as a modified form of trench fever. Extracellular rickettsia were isolated by louse-test in all the victims over a time-period of several months, and moreover in one case rickettsia were isolated which grew intracellularly in the louse. As the source of the infection and the determination of the isolated rickettsia, which the hypothesis forms for the correct diagnosis, we have grounds for explanation of the diseases as recurrences or reinfections with typhus fever or as so-called trench fever, or as 'mixed infections.' (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0846737
Entities
People
- F. Weyer
Organizations
- United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories