Rocky Mountain Fever

Carried to death's door by the bite of a Montana tick, a laboratory worker was saved last week by a new serum. With one notable exception, this researcher was the first scientist among several score experimenting on Rocky Mountain spotted fever to recover from an attack. The other: the man who invented the serum--young Dr. Norman Hawkins Topping of the U.S. Public Health Service. His attack of fever three years ago was so '"terrible" that after his miraculous recovery he worked day & night till he produced the new serum.

Rocky Mountain spotted fever attacks at least 1,000 people a year, in certain sections kills almost all its victims. Despite its name, the disease is found all over the U.S. In the West it is carried by the wood tick (Dermacentor andersoni), in the East by the dog tick (Dermacentor variabilis). But only one in 500 ticks is infected. The ticks, which are brown, about three-sixteenths of an inch long, with eight spiny legs, carry within their bodies a virus of the family Rickettsia (named after Howard Taylor Ricketts, one of the martyred scientists). Another form of Rickettsia is the virus of typhus fever. A tick passes on the virus through a bite; the virus also may penetrate the skin if a tick is crushed between the fingers.

Victims develop violent headaches, chills, fever, break out in bright red spots. Death may occur in three weeks. Dr. Topping's serum, which has saved about 20 patients so far, is not dramatic; it neither softens nor shortens the disease. The serum is made by infecting vaccinated rabbits with ground-up ticks, then drawing off their blood, which is rich in antibodies.

Warning to hikers and picnickers: 1) ticks are everywhere, so make careful inquiries before going on a long tramp; 2) keep arms, legs and neck covered when walking through brush or high grass; 3) take ticks off yourself or dog with tweezers, not fingers.

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