THE RAT AS A DISSEMINATOR OF THE RELAPSING FEVER OF PANAMA

Abstract

Attention should be directed to the probable role of the rat as a disseminating agent of the relapsing fever of Panama and presumably of Central America, Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela. In a set of very convincing experiments, Bates, Dunn and St. John1have recently demonstrated by human experimentation that the tickOrnithodorus talajeGuerin, 1849 is the natural transmitting agent of the relapsing fever of Panama. Epidemiologic testimony and the argument from analogy withO. moubata and Spirochaeta duttonihad been presented2some time before the actual demonstration of the tickO. talajeas the definitive host and carrier of the spirochete had been made. My own observations on O. talaje date back to 1905, when nymphs of this species were first taken from rats (Mus rattus) caught in buildings on Ancon Hospital grounds. Adults of the species were collected in August, 1910, in the Panaman village of