312 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
XXV 
always attributed to the bite of a tick which infested 
old camping-grounds along the caravan routes. No 
[)ositive proof was forthcoming that the fever attributed 
to the bites of ticks was really caused by them until 
L\ H. Ross and A. D Milne, working in Uganda, demon¬ 
strated the presence of a spirochaeta in the blood of 
patients who attributed their illness to the bite of a 
tick. 
It appears that a tick which has fed on a person 
suhering from tick fever may convey the parasite to 
healthy persons by biting them. Also the larva 
hatched from the eggs laid by an infected tick can 
convey the disease, as well as transmit it to the 
second generation, and the nymphs are infective to mice 
and monkeys. 
Tick fever appears to run a different course in 
natives and in Europeans. In the native, the chief 
symptoms are fever, headache, pains in the trunk and 
liml)s, and vomiting. There may be diarrhoea and 
cough. The temperature remains high for two days, 
then falls by a crisis, and, as a rule, the patient recovers, 
relapses being unusual. 
In Europeans the disease begins in much the same 
way, but the symptoms are more severe and last longer. 
After the crisis the patient appears ajjparently well; he 
will get a relapse after a few days, or even three weeks, 
and still be liable to a series of relapses, usually five or 
six, but sometimes as many as a dozen. The main 
features of the recurrent attacks are those of the 
primary onset of the disease, fever, pain, and vomit¬ 
ing : these relapses may occur in temperate climates 
long after the patient has left the country where he 
was infected. The disease is rarely fatal in man. 
There are two important diseases which affect 
domesticated animals in East Africa due to the bites 
of ticks : namely Red-water and East Coast Fever. 
Red-water is a disease which a.ffects cattle and is 
named after its most conspicuous sign, red urine, the 
