Medicine: Tick Fever

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is now in full seasonal upswing. But the U.S. Public Health Service reassuringly pointed out that, newspaper reports notwithstanding, there is no epidemic of Rocky Mountain spotted fever, less spotted fever (112 cases) so far this year than so far last year (126 cases).

In the Rocky Mountain area, where ticks have been carrying the fever since Indian days, people are not jittery about it. They know that only one tick in 300 is infected, that he must bite and burrow for several hours in order to transmit the infection. But in the East, where the fever has been recognized for only a dozen years, many people are afraid to walk in the woods. Recent trouble spots: 1) the District of Columbia, where three people, all bitten outside the District, have died of the disease; 2) Philadelphia, with five cases, one of whom caught the fever while picking ticks off his pet dog; 3) Deale and Shadyside (combined pop. 300), in Maryland’s Ann Arundel County, where two people have died and three others have caught Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

As the disease kills up to 80% of its victims, the Public Health Service has developed a vaccine for prevention and a serum for treatment (TIME, June 30, 1941), which cuts the death rate to a little less than 4%. Since all vaccine is reserved for people who must work in heavily infected woods, the Public Health Service advises others to de-tick themselves every few hours by using tweezers or paper to pick the ticks off—thus keeping the germs (if any) off the hands. The Army’s Surgeon General Norman T. Kirk reports that sulfur dusted into shoes and clothes will keep the ticks away.