Bartonellosis historical perspective
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
Historic Perspective
The disease was named after Dr. Alcides Carrión of Cerro de Pasco, Peru. Carrión described the disease after being infected on his request by Doctor Evaristo M. Chávez, a close friend and coworker in Dos de Mayo National Hospital. Carrión kept a meticulous clinical history until he was not able to do so because of the high fever. Carrión proved that "Fiebre de la Oroya" and "Verruga Peruana" were two stages of the same disease, not two different ones as thought at the time.
Dr Carrion had infected himself from the pus in the purple lesion in a bart No. 1 subspecies (bartonellosis) patient in 1885. He died from the disease several weeks later. Bart "1" is considered the most deadly bart to date, rarely killing in late chronic stage but in early stage some studies show a death rate of up to 90%. He was able to show the 2 disease stages where in fact 1 sole disease. He gave his life for us, and it led to the discovery of many more (23 subspecies to date) of bartonella. Although his work didn't save anyone at that time, he surely got the ball rolling. On his honor, we shall be forever grateful for his efforts on this disease.
The causative bacterial agent of bartonellosis was discovered by Alberto Barton in 1905, but it was not published until 1909. Barton originally identified them as endoglobular structures, which actually were the bacteria living inside red blood cells. Until 1993, the Bartonella genus contained only one species; there are now 23 identified species, all of them within family Bartonellaceae.[1]