RELAPSING FEVER 101 



small an extent that most authorities are now 

 agreed that they are variations of the same 

 disease. There may be a number of relapses at 

 quite definite intervals in the course of the sick- 

 ness, and during the intervals the patient often 

 feels well enough to go about. In the European 

 form of the disease there is not usually more than 

 one relapse after the initial attack. 



About fifty years ago a German worker, 

 Obermeyer, when examining the blood of a case 

 of relapsing fever saw the minute organisms 

 known as spirochaetes there for the first time. 

 The word spirochaete means " spiral hair " and 

 was given to these organisms on account of their 

 shape. A considerable number of spirochaetes 

 are now known, and a few of them have been 

 proved to cause diseases in man. There has been 

 much controversy as to whether they are members 

 of the Bacteria, which are classed with the 

 Vegetable Kingdom, or of the Protozoa, of the 

 Animal Kingdom, or whether they belong to 

 neither. Those best qualified to come to a 

 decision are to be found speaking on either side 

 and the question must be considered unsettled. 

 Generally speaking, in structure they resemble 

 the Bacteria, and in their life-history Protozoa, 

 but as in some stages they are so minute that 

 they escape the microscope altogether it must be 

 admitted that some of the details of their life- 

 history are based on assumption. The spiro- 

 chaete is a ribbon-shaped thread-like organism 



