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JAMA. 1970;211(10):1690-1691.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Fever of unknown origin (FUO) was the admission diagnosis in 306 of 1,616 patients seen on the Internal Medicine Service of the USAF Hospital in Vietnam during one year.¹ Of the patients, 636 were found to have diseases endemic to the tropics, and all of the 306 FUOs proved eventually to fall into this category. Malaria was the cause in 70%, but even after the diagnostic smoke had cleared, 36 of the 306 cases never yielded a finite diagnosis other than fever of unknown origin.

These 36 patients were thought mostly to have had diseases of rickettsial or arboviral origin, such as scrub typhus or dengue. Agglutination tests, however, were not diagnostic, and all recovered spontaneously. At the same time 43 of the 306 cases were confirmed as 28 with typhus and 15 with dengue fever.

Physicians sent to southeast Asia are not chosen for their skill in tropical . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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