Typhus

Typhus is a group of bacterial infections caused by Rickettsia or Orientia bacteria and usually transmitted by arthropods. Its illnesses commonly cause fever, headache, and sometimes a rash.

Rickettsia: A genus of bacteria that includes agents of several arthropod-borne diseases. Several typhus-group infections are caused by bacteria in this genus.
Body louse: A human-feeding louse that lives mainly in clothing and can transmit infections. Infected lice spread epidemic typhus when contaminated feces enter scratched skin.
Murine typhus: A flea-borne infection caused by Rickettsia typhi, often associated with rodents and other mammals. It is a common typhus form distinct from epidemic typhus.
Doxycycline: A tetracycline antibiotic used to treat a wide range of bacterial infections. It is a standard treatment for most typhus infections.
Charles Nicolle: A French bacteriologist who showed in 1909 that body lice transmit epidemic typhus. His experiments established the body louse as the epidemic typhus vector.
Orientia: A genus of bacteria that includes the agent of scrub typhus. Scrub typhus is caused by Orientia rather than Rickettsia.
Orientia tsutsugamushi: A bacterium transmitted by larval mites that causes scrub typhus. This species is the agent behind the mite-borne form of typhus.
Brill–Zinsser disease: A delayed recurrence of epidemic typhus caused by reactivation of Rickettsia prowazekii. It shows that epidemic typhus can recur long after the initial infection.
Polymerase chain reaction: A laboratory method that amplifies selected DNA sequences for detection and analysis. PCR can identify typhus-group bacteria in suitable clinical samples.
Henrique da Rocha Lima: A Brazilian physician and pathologist who identified Rickettsia prowazekii in 1916. His work identified the bacterium responsible for epidemic typhus.

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Year Without a SummerRelated: Famine and displacement accompanied epidemic typhus in parts of Europe in the aftermath.