THE DIAGNOSIS OF AFRICAN TICK FEVER FROM THE 

 EXAMINATION OF THE BLOOD. 



By Richard P. Sthoxg. 



(From the Institut fur Schiffs-und Tropenhrankheiten, Hamburg, Professor Nocht, 



Direktor; Abteilung Professor Proioasek.) 



The study of the various forms of relapsing fever has attracted consid- 

 erable attention during the past four years. In 1904 P. Eoss and 

 Milne, working in Uganda, 1 were able to demonstrate that the disease 

 heretofore known as tick fever and supposedly conveyed by the bite of a 

 tick, was due to a Spirochwta which was found in the circulating blood, 

 though usually present here only in very small numbers. Although the 

 disease termed tick fever had been recognized for a long period of time, 

 and was mentioned by Livingstone in 1857, 2 its etiology had previously 

 remained obscure. 



In 1905 Dutton and Todd 3 in the Congo were able to confirm the observation 

 of Eoss and Milne, and to show that the parasite could pass into the egg and 

 larva of the tick Ornithodorus moubata (Murray) and so confer infective power 

 upon the mature form of the succeeding generation. They also frequently found 

 the spi.rochsetse to be very scanty in the circulating blood. R. Koch, 4 in his 

 studies in Africa in 1905 and 1906 also concluded that the African recurrent 

 fever was transmitted by the bite of the tick Ornithodorus moubata. He reported 

 that the malady might be considered an African variety of relapsing fever, but 

 not a distinct and different disease from the European one. He emphasized the 

 fact that the parasites were not numerous in the peripheral blood. He believed 

 that these organisms were usually a little longer than in the case of Spirochwta 

 re'currens and that the febrile periods were shorter in the African than in the 

 European variety, but that the two were otherwise similar. 



Until the past year (1906) but one distinctive form of relapsing fever 

 in man caused by spirochajta? had been distinguished, although Manson D 

 and later Sambon ° had previously suggested that there might be several 



l Brit. Med. Journ. (1904), 2, 1453. 

 ■ = Mission. Travels and Research: J. Murray, London (1857), 1, 283, etc. 



3 Brit. Med. Journ. (1905), 2, Nov. 14, 1259. Mem. Liv. School Trop. Med. 

 (1905), 17, 1. 



'Deutsche Med. Wchnsch. (1905), 31, Part II (Nov. 23), 1865. Berl. Iclin. 

 Wchnsch. (1900), 43, 185. 



"Brit. Med. Journ. (1904), 1, 538. 



"Brit. Med. Journ. (1905), 2, 120. 



231 



