Hygiene: a manual of personal and public health (New Edition)

by Sir Arthur Newsholme

RELAPSING FEVER.

This disease was formerly common in this country, but except in some parts of Ireland has entirely died out. It is caused by a micro-organism (Spirillum Obermeieri) which can be detected in the blood. Inoculation of this will produce the disease in man or in monkeys.

Epidemics of relapsing fever commonly follow in the track of typhus fever; overcrowding and filth being especially associated with typhus, and starvation with relapsing fever, hence its name of “famine fever.”