122 RICKETTSIA 



organisms of typhus and Wolhynian fever and apparently did 

 not study their lice by sectioning. They found 80 per cent of 

 the lice collected from cases of the disease to be infected. 



Munk and da Rocha-Lima (1917) found rickettsia in lice 

 from Wolhynian fever cases, but could not prove their relation- 

 ship to the disease, as they found them in lice fed upon cases 

 of other diseases as well as upon normal people. They showed 

 that these rickettsia in lice from various sources were different 

 from the rickettsia associated with typhus in that they multi- 

 plied and remained extracellular in the louse's alimentary 

 tract. They gave the name Rickettsia pediculi to this type of 

 micro-organism and denied it pathogenic properties. They 

 pointed out other less important differences which are de- 

 scribed below. They criticized the finding of these bodies by 

 Jungmann and Kuczynski in the blood of patients on the 

 basis that similar paired granules can be found in Giemsa prepa- 

 rations of normal blood. 



The fact that lice acquired Rickettsia pediculi when fed upon 

 Wolhynian fever cases after recovery was used as further evi- 

 dence against their etiological significance. Munk and da 

 Rocha-Lima did not accept the transmission of Wolhynian 

 fever by the louse as proved. 



Meanwhile, Noller's discovery (1917) of a rickettsia in the 

 "ked" ("louse," "tick," Melophagus ovinus) of sheep and not 

 associated with any ovine disease, furnished material for 

 skepticism. 



Brumpt in 1918, and Strong in 1919, opposed the conclusions 

 that any rickettsia were pathogenic. Brumpt found rickettsia 

 in lice from presumably healthy prisoners of war and did not 

 experience any ill effects from nurturing these lice in numbers 

 upon his own person. He did not distinguish between extra- 

 cellular and intracellular varieties of rickettsia. Strong also 

 fed lice containing rickettsia collected from healthy persons 

 upon other healthy individuals without observing any ill 

 effects. 



Adequate control experiments with the objective of de- 

 termining the specificity of rickettsia for any disease had not 



