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Theodore E. Woodward, MD

JAMA. 1986;255(16):2211-2212.

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

In this issue, Taylor and Betz¹ describe the occurrence of 200 cases of murine typhus in Texas from 1980 to 1984. Up to 1940, as many as 5,000 cases of rat-flea typhus occurred in the United States annually. With the advent of control measures, particularly those directed toward the control of rodents and their ectoparasites, the incidence diminished sharply, reducing the annual number of reported cases to 61 and 58 in 1981 and 1982, respectively. Murine typhus is one of those specific infectious diseases, such as Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, plague, or brucellosis, that occur infrequently and sporadically so that physicians are no longer aware of their classic features or their potential to cause illness. Murine typhus has its established reservoir in rodents, just as Rocky Mountain spotted fever has its reservoir in ticks. Eradication is not feasible; hence, these diseases will continue to occur.

Epidemic typhus fever . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
University of Maryland School of Medicine Baltimore

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