Abstract
Although trench fever appears to be endemic in many areas of the world, recognition of the disease has been handicapped by the difficulties of making a clinical diagnosis and the unavailability of a simple laboratory procedure to establish the etiology. The author describes a method for the in vitro cultivation of Rickettsia quintana that provides a relatively simple means for the laboratory diagnosis of trench fever. R. quintana can be propagated with ease from the blood of patients directly on blood agar incubated at 37°C for 12-14 days under a gas tension of 5% CO2 in air. The number of rickettsiae circulating in the patient's peripheral blood can be quantitated. The protracted rickettsiaemia in trench fever makes for a relatively long period during which blood culture can be usefully employed.
In the course of studies with the method described, it was found that erythrocytes contain a factor (or, possibly, factors) essential for multiplication of R. quintana; this factor is cryostable and thermostable and may be haemoglobin. Blood serum also promotes multiplication.
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Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
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