Medicine: Creeping Fever

Undulant fever is a mysterious disease that makes uncounted millions miserable. In 1914 a French physician, Dr. Charles Nicolle, predicted that it might some day become the No. 1 human disease (it was then widely prevalent among cattle). Last week in Mexico City, delegates to a Pan American Congress on the disease agreed that, unhappily, Dr. Nicolle’s prediction seemed likely to come true. Undulant fever, barely 40 years ago an ailment chiefly of the Mediterranean world,* is already a major problem in most of North and South America.

Undulant fever (brucellosis) is caused by bacteria transmitted to human beings by infected cows, goats or pigs, either by contact or in unpasteurized milk or cheese. Hence it is most common in rural areas. Anyone who feels weak, tired, feverish and generally rotten should be suspected of having the disease—but detection is tough. Reason: the symptoms resemble those of many other common diseases, including malaria, tuberculosis, psychoneurosis. Undulant fever seldom kills, but it may keep its victims wretched.

Itemized Bill. Authorities estimate that from 4,000,000 to 12,000,000 U.S. citizens are infected with brucellosis germs, that some 40,000 annually become doctors’ patients. About 12% of U.S. cattle of breeding age are infected.

Brucellosis can be stopped at its source by 1) vaccination and 2) killing infected animals. But the cost is high. At last week’s Congress, delegates heard a hopeful report from a veteran fighter against the disease: Dr. Forest Huddleson of Michigan State College announced a new vaccine which is effective in .curing as well as preventing brucellosis in cattle.

They also heard a less hopeful prediction from Dr. Alice Catherine Evans, 65, who was the first to connect the human type of the disease with that in animals. Said Dr. Evans, who retired last year after long service as a U.S. Public Health Service bacteriologist (she once had undulant fever herself): there is danger, unless radical steps are taken, that a purely human form of brucellosis may evolve which would be much more deadly than the varieties derived from cattle.

* Because the island of Malta is a prime breeding place, the disease is also known as Malta fever.