CHAPTER X. 

 RELAPSING FEVER. 



SPIROCH^ETA OBERMEIERI (OBERMEIER). 



General Characteristics. An elongate, flexible, flagellated, non- 

 sporogenous, actively motile spiral bacterium, pathogenic for man and 

 monkeys, not susceptible of cultivation in artificial media, stained by 

 ordinary methods, but not by Gram's method. 



In 1873 Obermeier* discovered a flexible spiral organism 

 in the blood of patients suffering from relapsing fever, 

 but in spite of careful study we have advanced but little 

 in our knowledge of it. The recent researches of Schau- 



Fig. 164. Spirochaeta obermieri from human blood (Kolle and 

 Wassermann). 



dinn upon the trypanosomes and the discovery that 

 certain ticks and probably also bedbugs act as definite 

 hosts of the parasites have led to the supposition that this 

 organism, instead of being a true Spirochaeta, may be a 

 trypanosome. Its appearance and general structure are, 



*"Centralbl. f. d. med. Wissenschaft," 1873. 

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