TICK BORNE TULAREMIA: REPORT OF FIFTEEN CASES

Tularemia is an acute infectious disease caused by Bacterium tularense (Pasteurella tularensis). The disease was discovered in 1910 by Dr. George W. McCoy of the United States Public Health Service. The original investigative work on this "plague-like disease of rodents" was carried out on ground squirrels in Tulare County, Calif.—hence the name tularemia. This disease later was found to be present in man and is identical with the "deer fly fever" of man found in Utah. 1 Many cases of human tularemia have been reported. Usually the source of the infection is not difficult to determine. Tularemia "occurs under natural conditions in over twenty kinds of wild life, especially in wild rabbits and hares. Man becomes infected by contact of his bare hands with the raw flesh and blood of these animals or by bites of blood sucking ticks and flies which have previously fed on animals infected with Bacterium tularense."