MALTA FEVER

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 141, 18 June 1927, Page 20

MALTA FEVER

CAUSATIVE OBGANISM,

The germ that causes premature calving in cows has been found to cause a disease in man that appears to be identical with the undulant or 3\£alta fever pf Europe,. Miss Alice C. Evans, bacjteriplQjgißt; of the U.iS. Public Health Service has/ issued -q. general ivarning through ,the American Medical Association that physicians.bp on the lookout for this previously little-suspccfcd dis-' ease, "'

• In the /countries ground tho Mediterranean people contract unduJant fever froni handling infected'goats, or by consuming their milk or cheese, states 'Jgeience Service." In the United States cattle and hogs have been incriminated as the carriers of thq causative organism whigh is believed to 'be transferred to humans in tho same ■ way. Some ;,unknown factor, .howeyer,: has probably .prevented thg disease from becoming -, as., common in America as' in subtropical countries of Europe.

In recent years.cases.have been recognised in .various -. regions throughout the • United States,-'but: Miss Evans points out that '* judgment as to hqw common it is here innst be deferred for at least a few years." The "diseases with which it is most likely to be, confused, according to medical authorities, are malaria, acute rheumatism, typhoid tuberculosis, and the more recently discovered disease, tularemia, *that is transmitted to mau by rabbits. Miss Evans cites cases of undulant fever in which cattle are believed to have been the infective agent from such widely separated countries as South Africa, Italy, Palestine, and the .Thritetl States.