Relapsing Fever 547 



In 1904 Ross and Milne* and Button and Toddf studied 

 a peculiar African fever which they were able to refer to a 

 spirochaeta for which NovyJ has proposed the name Spiro- 

 chaeta duttoni in memory of Dutton, who lost his life while 

 studying it. It was found that this organism, like most of 

 the others described, was transmitted by a tick, Ornitho- 

 doros moubata. 



With the work of Schaudinn and his associate, Hoffmann, 

 the spirochaeta came to be regarded as protozoan parasites 

 because of the presence of an undulating membrane; the 

 refusal of most of the organisms to grow upon artificial media, 



Fig. 1 86. Spirochaeta obermeieri from human blood (Kolle and Was- 



sermann). 



the role of an intermediate host (ticks, etc.) in transmitting 

 them, and the longitudinal mode of division. 



Fevers characterized by relapses and by the presence of 

 spirochaeta in the blood have been found in northern and 

 northeastern Europe (true relapsing fever with Spirochaeta 

 obermeieri), in various parts of Africa (African relapsing 

 fever with Spirochaeta duttoni), in Bombay, and in America. 

 The question, therefore, arises whether these similar diseases 

 are slight modifications of the same thing caused by the same 



* ''British Med. Jour.," Nov. 26, 1904, p. 1453. 



t" Memoir xvu, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine," "Brit. 

 Med. Jour.," Nov. n, 1905, p. 1259. 



J "Jour. Infectious Diseases," 1906, m, p. 295. 



" Deutsche med. Wochenschrift," Oct., 1905, xxxi, p. 1665; 

 "Arbeiten aus dem kaiserlichen Gesundheitsamte," 1904, xx, pp. 387- 

 439- 



