Relapsing Fever in the United States

Prior to 1930, relapsing fever was practically unknown in the United States except for a few sporadic cases in Colorado and California, having last been encountered in epidemic proportions along the eastern Atlantic seaboard during the period 1869-1871. The report1 of cases occurring in Texas in which the vector was proved to be the tick Ornithodorus turicata stimulated interest in this important disease with the result that in that state and California it has been reported with increasing frequency. In Texas,²data have been collected on 258 cases that have occurred during the last five years. On the basis of published proved cases the disease is endemic in Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas and Kansas. It is my purpose in this paper to bring to the attention of physicians a disease which probably is endemic throughout the entire southern half of the United States wherever ticks of the genus Ornithodorus