Abstract
During the last ten or fifteen years there has
been considerable interest aroused by the publications
from all over the world (see map) of fevers that
resemble Typhus Exanthemus clinically, but which
appear to differ in certain respects in their etiology.
The fevers that have been described by the various
authors are endemic in their respective countries,
cases occurring sporadically each year.
There does not appear to be any person to person
infection in these fevers and this has led to their
being differentiated from Typhus Exanthemus which is
known to occur in epidemics and has been called an in-
fectious disease.
It is known that Yyphus Exanthemus can be
prevented by the exclusion of lice or its excreta from
contact with the individual and so the disease is not
strictly speaking infectious, but contagious, infection
being passed by means of the louse. In the majority
of the fevers that have been described, the carrying
agent is thought to be some insect other than the louse.
The insects that are suspected are ones that do not
habitually live on man but only bite them occasionally,
hence the unlikelihood of person to person infectivity
in these fevers.
The fevers have been given numerous
different names, each country and author giving its
or his own name for their own special fever, and so
there has arisen a great deal of confusion with
regard to these fevers.
It is the purpose of this thesis firstly, to
describe in detail the disease as it is found in Kenya
and the results of investigations into its etiology
that have been carried out recently, secondly, to
give a brief description of the other fevers that occur
elsewhere in the world and, thirdly, to endeavour to
correlate the various fevers and bring them together
into one group and to show that all these fevers are
varieties of Typhus Exanthemus.
