The Experimental Transmission of the Spirochaete of European Relapsing Fever to Rats and Mice

Abstract

On clinical grounds alone sufficient evidence is available to postulate that European relapsing fever and Central African tick-fever are caused by different, though closely allied, organisms. However, as the spirochaetes of both diseases are morphologically identical (Schellack, 1908; Darling, 1909), I should like to record some experiments and observations I made during the winter of 1910–11 in Moscow, so as to give an exact impression of the difficulty or ease with which Spirochaeta recurrentis can be transmitted to mice when compared with S. duttoni under the same conditions. Moreover, I wish to describe some appearances in S. recurrentis, the exact counterpart of which have not so far been published in the case of any blood spirochaete.