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VIII.120 - Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and the Spotted Fever Group Diseases

from Part VIII - Major Human Diseases Past and Present

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Kenneth F. Kiple
Affiliation:
Bowling Green State University, Ohio
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Summary

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a severe, acute, rickettsial disease transmitted by ticks and limited to the Western Hemisphere. Its major symptoms are similar to those of epidemic typhus, but its rash covers the entire body, including the face, the palms of the hands, and the soles of the feet. Between 20 and 25 percent of untreated victims die, making Rocky Mountain spotted fever the most severe rickettsial infection in the Americas. First identified in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States, this place name has never been dislodged, even though it is inaccurate and even misleading.

Etiology and Epidemiology

The severity with which Rocky Mountain spotted fever treats its victims underscores its natural existence as an infection of ticks and their mammalian hosts. The microbial cause of the disease, Rickettsia rickettsii, normally inhabits ixodid, or hard shell, ticks, apparently causing little harm to the host. Although small mammals are susceptible to a mild infection with R. rickettsii an may transmit it to uninfected ticks, the principal means by which the organism is maintained in nature is from one generation to the next in the eggs of the female tick.

The epidemiology of Rocky Mountain spotted fever is linked to areas favorable for the habitation of the vector ticks. The Rocky Mountain wood tick, Dermacentor andersoni, and the American dog tick, Dermacentor variabilis, are the most common vectors in the United States, although the Lone Star tick, Amblyomma americanum, also transmits the disease in the south central and southeastern parts of the United States.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

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References

Aikawa, Jerry K. 1966. Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Springfield, Ill.Google Scholar
Harden, Victoria A. 1985. Rocky Mountain spotted fever research and the development of the insect vector theory. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 59.Google ScholarPubMed
Harden, Victoria A. 1990. Rocky mountain spotted fever: A twentieth-century disease. Baltimore.Google Scholar
Hoogstraal, Harry. 1981. Changing patterns of tickborne diseases in modern society. Annual Reviews of Entomology 26.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lackman, David B. 1963. A review of information of rickettsialpox in the United States. Clinical Pediatrics 2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDade, Joseph E., and Newhouse, Verne F.. 1948. Natural history of rickettsia rickettsii. Annual Review of Microbiology 40.Google Scholar
Price, Esther Gaskins. 1948. Fighting spotted fever in the Rockies. Helena, Montana.Google Scholar
Roueche, Berton. 1947. The alerting of Mr. Pomerantz. New Yorker August 30.Google Scholar
,U.S. Public Health Service. Centers for Disease Control. 1985. Rocky Mountain spotted fever – United States, 1985. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports 35 (April 18):.
Wilson, Louis B., and Chowning, William M.. 1904. Studies in pyroplasmosis hominis: ‘Spotted fever’ or ‘tick fever’ of the Rocky Mountains. Journal of Infectious Diseases 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodward, Theodore E., and Jackson, Elizabeth B.. 1965. Spotted fever rickettsiae. In Viral and rickettsial infections of man, ed. Horsfall, Frank L. Jr., and Tamm, Igor. Philadelphia.Google Scholar

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