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{{Typhus}}
{{Typhus}}
{{CMG}} ; {{AE}} {{ADG}}
==Overview==


{{CMG}}


==Historical Perspective==
==Historical perspective==
*In 1083, Typhus was first identified as a disease in Spain.
*In 1489, during the Spanish siege of Moorish Granada, the first reliable description of the disease was made.
*In 1546, Fracastoro extensively described the disease and distinguished it from plague in his book Contagione.
*In 1676, Von Zavorziz wrote a book on  typhus called The Infection of Military Camps.
*In 1739, Huxham stated typhus and typhoid as two different entities, later in the same year Boissier de Sauvages confirmed this and called it exanthematic typhus.
*In 1829, Louis, French clinician clearly differentiated Typhus Fever from Typhoid Fever.
*In 1836, Gerhard(United States) clearly distinguished the two diseases from each other based on pathologic findings.
*In 1909, Charles Nicolle for the first time described the role of lice bite in transmission of typhus. In 1928, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery.
*In 1916, Weil and Felix reported the isolation of a Proteus that was agglutinated by the sera of patients with typhus, which was the basis for the first serological test for the disease.
*In 1916, DaRocha-Lima isolated and identified Rickettsia prowazeki.
*In 1926, Maxcy described the various forms of typhus.
*In 1938, Starzyk demonstrated  that patients are infected by the feces and not the bite of the louse.
*In 1922, Wolbach described the human histopathology of R prowazekii infection.<ref name="pmid4997497">{{cite journal |vauthors=Woodward TE |title=Typhus verdict in American history |journal=Trans. Am. Clin. Climatol. Assoc. |volume=82 |issue= |pages=1–8 |year=1971 |pmid=4997497 |pmc=2441062 |doi= |url=}}</ref>
*In 1938, Cox was successful in growing cell cultures of R prowazekii in embryonated eggs.<ref name="Cox1938">{{cite journal|last1=Cox|first1=Herald R.|title=Use of Yolk Sac of Developing Chick Embryo as Medium for Growing Rickettsiae of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Typhus Groups|journal=Public Health Reports (1896-1970)|volume=53|issue=51|year=1938|pages=2241|issn=00946214|doi=10.2307/4582741}}</ref>
*In 1940, Cox and Bell prepared an Epidemic Typhus vaccine based upon the use of tissue culture.
*In 1943–1944, during World war II DDT (a pesticide) was employed to control lice and typhus.
*In 1998, Andersson et al, sequenced the entire genome after much study of the fundamental mechanisms of R prowazekii's intracellular life and its effects on host cells.<ref name="pmid9823893">{{cite journal |vauthors=Andersson SG, Zomorodipour A, Andersson JO, Sicheritz-Pontén T, Alsmark UC, Podowski RM, Näslund AK, Eriksson AS, Winkler HH, Kurland CG |title=The genome sequence of Rickettsia prowazekii and the origin of mitochondria |journal=Nature |volume=396 |issue=6707 |pages=133–40 |year=1998 |pmid=9823893 |doi=10.1038/24094 |url=}}</ref>


==Historical Perspective==


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The first description of typhus was probably given in 1083 at a convent near Salerno, Italy.<ref>[http://www.lwow.home.pl/Weigl.html Maintenace of human-fed live lice in the laboratory and production of Weigl's exanthematous typhus vaccine] by Waclaw Szybalski (1999)</ref> In 1546, [[Girolamo Fracastoro]], a Florentine physician, described typhus in his famous treatise on viruses and contagion, ''De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis''.<ref>[[Girolamo Fracastoro|Fracastoro, Girolama]], ''De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis'' (1546).</ref>
Before a vaccine was developed in World War II, typhus was a devastating disease for humans and has been responsible for a number of [[epidemics]] throughout history.<ref name= Zinsser>[[Hans Zinsser|Zinsser, Hans]].  ''Rats, Lice and History:  A Chronicle of Pestilence and Plagues''. Originally published in Boston in 1935, later edition in 1963.  Most recent edition 1996, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, New York.  ISBN 1-884822-47-9.</ref> These epidemics tend to follow wars, [[famine]], and other conditions that result in mass causalties.
During the second year of the Peloponnesian War (430 BC), the city-state of Athens in ancient Greece was hit by a devastating epidemic, known as the [[Plague of Athens]], which killed, among others, Pericles and his two elder sons. The plague returned twice more, in 429 BC and in the winter of 427/6 BC.  Epidemic typhus is one of the strongest candidates for the cause of this disease outbreak, supported by both medical and scholarly opinions.<ref>At a January 1999 medical conference at the [[University of Maryland, College Park|University of Maryland]], Dr. David Durack, consulting professor of medicine at [[Duke University]] notes:  ''"Epidemic typhus fever is the best explanation.  It hits hardest in times of war and privation, it has about 20 percent mortality, it kills the victim after about seven days, and it sometimes causes a striking complication: gangrene of the tips of the fingers and toes. The Plague of Athens had all these features."'' see also: http://www.umm.edu/news/releases/athens.html</ref><ref>Gomme, A. W., edited by A. Andrewes and K. J. Dover.  ''An Historical Commentary on Thucydides, Volume 5. Book VIII''  Oxford University Press, 1981.  ISBN 0-19-814198-X.</ref>
Typhus also arrived in Europe with soldiers who had been fighting on the isle of Cyprus. The first reliable description of the disease appears during the Spanish siege of Moorish Granada in 1489. These accounts include descriptions of fever and red spots over arms, back and chest, progressing to delirium, gangrenous sores, and the stink of rotting flesh. During the siege, the Spaniards lost 3,000 men to enemy action but an additional 17,000 died of typhus.
Typhus was also common in prisons (and in crowded conditions where [[lice]] spreads easily), where it was known as ''Gaol fever'' or ''Jail fever''. Gaol fever often occurs when prisoners are frequently huddled together in dark, filthy rooms. Imprisonment until the next term of court was often equivalent to a death sentence.  It was so infectious that prisoners brought before the court sometimes infected the court itself. Following the Assize held at Oxford in 1577, later deemed the Black Assize, over 300 died from Epidemic typhus, including Sir Robert Bell Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer. The outbreak that followed, between 1557 to 1559, killed about 10% of the English population. 
During the Lent Assize Court held at Taunton (1730) typhus caused the death of the Lord Chief Baron, as well as the High Sheriff, the sergeant, and hundreds of others. During a time when there were 241 capital offenses--more prisoners died from 'gaol fever' than were put to death by all the public executioners in the realm. In 1759 an English authority estimated that each year a fourth of the prisoners had died from Gaol fever.<ref>Ralph D. Smith, Comment, Criminal Law -- Arrest -- The Right to Resist Unlawful Arrest, 7 NAT. RESOURCES J. 119, 122 n.16 (1967) (hereinafter Comment) (citing John Howard, The State of Prisons 6-7 (1929)) (Howard's observations are from 1773 to 1775). Copied from State v. Valentine May 1997 132 Wn.2d 1, 935 P.2d 1294</ref> In London, typhus frequently broke out among the ill-kept prisoners of Newgate Gaol and then moved into the general city population.
Epidemics occurred throughout Europe from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and occurred during the English Civil War, the Thirty Years' War and the Napoleonic Wars. During Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in 1812, more French soldiers died of typhus than were killed by the Russians.
A major epidemic occurred in Ireland between 1816-19, and again in the late 1830s, and yet another major typhus epidemic occurred during the Great Irish Famine between 1846 and 1849. The Irish typhus spread to England, where it was sometimes called "Irish fever" and was noted for its virulence. It killed people of all social classes, since lice were endemic and inescapable, but it hit particularly hard in the lower or "unwashed" social strata.
In America, a typhus epidemic killed the son of [[Franklin Pierce]] in Concord, New Hampshire in 1843 and struck in Philadelphia in 1837. Several epidemics occurred in Baltimore, Maryland, Memphis, Tennessee and Washington DC between 1865 and 1873. Typhus fever was also a significant killer during the US Civil War, although [[typhoid]] fever was the more prevalent cause of US Civil War "camp fever". Typhoid is a completely different disease from typhus.
During World War I typhus caused three million deaths in Russia and more in Poland and Romania. De-lousing stations were established for troops on the Western front but the disease ravaged the armies of the Eastern front, with over 150,000 dying in Serbia alone. Fatalities were generally between 10 to 40 percent of those infected, and the disease was a major cause of death for those nursing the sick.
Some historians assert that the disease may serve as a model for the use of biological weapons while in the field. Between 1918 and 1922 typhus caused at least 3 million deaths out of 20&ndash;30 million cases. In Russia after World War I, during a civil war between the White and Red armies, typhus killed three million, largely civilians. Even larger epidemics in the post-war chaos of Europe were only averted by the widespread use of the newly discovered [[DDT]] to kill the lice on millions of refugees and displaced persons.
During World War II typhus struck the German army as it invaded Russia in 1941. In 1942 and 1943 typhus hit French North Africa, Egypt and Iran particularly hard.<ref>Zarafonetis, Chris J. D. [http://history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/wwii/infectiousdisvolii/chapter7.htm ''Internal Medicine in World War II, Volume II'', Chapter 7] </ref> Typhus epidemics killed inmates in the Nazi Germany concentration camps, infamous pictures of typhus victims' mass graves could be seen in footage shot at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Thousands of prisoners held in appalling conditions in Nazi concentration camps such Theresienstadt and Bergen-Belsen also died of typhus during World War II, including  Anne Frank and her sister Margot.
Following the development of a vaccine during World War II epidemics occur only in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa.


==References==
==References==

Revision as of 19:32, 5 May 2017

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1] ; Associate Editor(s)-in-Chief: Aditya Ganti M.B.B.S. [2]

Overview

Historical Perspective

Historical perspective

  • In 1083, Typhus was first identified as a disease in Spain.
  • In 1489, during the Spanish siege of Moorish Granada, the first reliable description of the disease was made.
  • In 1546, Fracastoro extensively described the disease and distinguished it from plague in his book Contagione.
  • In 1676, Von Zavorziz wrote a book on typhus called The Infection of Military Camps.
  • In 1739, Huxham stated typhus and typhoid as two different entities, later in the same year Boissier de Sauvages confirmed this and called it exanthematic typhus.
  • In 1829, Louis, French clinician clearly differentiated Typhus Fever from Typhoid Fever.
  • In 1836, Gerhard(United States) clearly distinguished the two diseases from each other based on pathologic findings.
  • In 1909, Charles Nicolle for the first time described the role of lice bite in transmission of typhus. In 1928, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for his discovery.
  • In 1916, Weil and Felix reported the isolation of a Proteus that was agglutinated by the sera of patients with typhus, which was the basis for the first serological test for the disease.
  • In 1916, DaRocha-Lima isolated and identified Rickettsia prowazeki.
  • In 1926, Maxcy described the various forms of typhus.
  • In 1938, Starzyk demonstrated that patients are infected by the feces and not the bite of the louse.
  • In 1922, Wolbach described the human histopathology of R prowazekii infection.[1]
  • In 1938, Cox was successful in growing cell cultures of R prowazekii in embryonated eggs.[2]
  • In 1940, Cox and Bell prepared an Epidemic Typhus vaccine based upon the use of tissue culture.
  • In 1943–1944, during World war II DDT (a pesticide) was employed to control lice and typhus.
  • In 1998, Andersson et al, sequenced the entire genome after much study of the fundamental mechanisms of R prowazekii's intracellular life and its effects on host cells.[3]


  • Civilian Public Service worker distributes rat poison for typhus control in Gulfport, Mississippi, ca. 1945.
    Civilian Public Service worker distributes rat poison for typhus control in Gulfport, Mississippi, ca. 1945.
  • A U.S. soldier is demonstrating DDT-hand spraying equipment. DDT was used to control the spread of typhus-carrying lice.
    A U.S. soldier is demonstrating DDT-hand spraying equipment. DDT was used to control the spread of typhus-carrying lice.


References

  1. ↑ Woodward TE (1971). "Typhus verdict in American history". Trans. Am. Clin. Climatol. Assoc. 82: 1–8. PMC 2441062. PMID 4997497.
  2. ↑ Cox, Herald R. (1938). "Use of Yolk Sac of Developing Chick Embryo as Medium for Growing Rickettsiae of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and Typhus Groups". Public Health Reports (1896-1970). 53 (51): 2241. doi:10.2307/4582741. ISSN 0094-6214.
  3. ↑ Andersson SG, Zomorodipour A, Andersson JO, Sicheritz-Pontén T, Alsmark UC, Podowski RM, Näslund AK, Eriksson AS, Winkler HH, Kurland CG (1998). "The genome sequence of Rickettsia prowazekii and the origin of mitochondria". Nature. 396 (6707): 133–40. doi:10.1038/24094. PMID 9823893.

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