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RELAPSING FEVER (Febris recurrens)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 58 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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RELAPSING See also:

FEVER (Febris recurrens) , the name given to a specific infectious disease occasionally appearing as an epidemic in communities suffering from scarcity or See also:famine. It is characterized mainly by its sudden invasion, with violent 'febrile symptoms, which continue for about a See also:week and end in a crisis, but are followed, after another week, by a return of the fever. This disease has received many other names, the best known of which are famine fever, seven-See also:day, bilious relapsing fever, and spirillum fever. As in the See also:case of typhoid, relapsing fever was See also:long believed to be simply a See also:form of typhus. The distinction between them appears to have been first clearly established in 1826, in connexion with an epidemic in See also:Ireland. Relapsing fever is highly contagious. With respect to the nature of the contagion, certain important observations have been made (see also PARASITIC DISEASES). In 1873 Obermeier discovered in the See also:blood of persons suffering from relapsing fever See also:minute organisms in the form of See also:spiral filaments of the genus Spirochaete, measuring in length See also:sin to Iha See also:inch and in breadth ,soba to saha inch, and possessed of rotatory or twisting movements. This organism received the name of Spirillum obermeieri. Fritz Schaudinn has brought forward See also:evidence that. it is an See also:animal See also:parasite. The most constantly recognized See also:factor in the origin and spread of relapsing fever is destitution; but this cannot be regarded as more than a predisposing cause, since in many lands widespread and destructive famines have prevailed without any outbreak of this fever. In-stances, too, have been recorded where epidemics were distinctly associated with overcrowding rather than with privation.

Relapsing fever is most commonly met with in the See also:

young. One attack does not appear to protect from others, but rather, according to some authorities, engenders liability. The See also:incubation of the disease is about one week. The symptoms of the fever then show themselves with See also:great abruptness and violence by a rigor, accompanied with pains in the limbs and severe See also:head-ache. The febrile phenomena are very marked, and the temperature quickly rises to a high point (105°-107° Fahr.), at which it continues with little variation, while the See also:pulse is rapid (100-140), full and strong. There is intense thirst a dry See also:brown See also:tongue, bilious vomiting, tenderness over the See also:liver and See also:spleen, and occasionally See also:jaundice. Sometimes a See also:peculiar bronzy See also:appearance of the skin is noticed, but there is no characteristic rash as in typhus. There is much prostration of strength. After the continuance of these symptoms for a See also:period of from five to seven days, the temperature suddenly falls to the normal point or below it, the pulse becomes correspondingly slow, and a profuse See also:perspiration occurs, while the severe headache disappears and the appetite returns. Except for a sense of weakness, the patient feels well and may even return to See also:work, but in some cases there remains a See also:condition of great debility, accompanied with rheumatic pains in the limbs. This See also:state of freedom from fever continues for about a week, when there occurs a well-marked relapse with scarcely less abruptness and severity than in the first attack, and the whole symptoms are of the same See also:character, but they do not, as a See also:rule, continue so long, and they terminate in a crisis in three or four days, after which convalescence proceeds satisfactorily. Second, third and even See also:fourth relapses, however, may occur in exceptional cases.

The mortality in relapsing fever is comparatively small, about 5 % being the See also:

average See also:death-See also:rate in epidemics (See also:Murchison). The fatal cases occur mostly from the complications See also:common to continued fevers. The treatment is essentially the same as that for typhus fever. Lowenthal and Gabritochewsky by using the serum of an immune See also:horse succeeded in averting the relapse in 40% of cases.

End of Article: RELAPSING FEVER (Febris recurrens)

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