Rocky Mountain Laboratories: Canyon Creek Schoolhouse Laboratory 100th Anniversary
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Early residents of the Bitterroot Valley called the disease “black measles”, “blue disease”, “black typhus”, or just “fever.” This disease appeared in the valley after the slope had been cleared of trees for timber, leaving the perfect environment for ticks. In 1902, the state of Montana asked scientists to investigate the mysterious disease. In less than 22 years, researchers identified what caused the disease, how it was transmitted to humans, and created a life-saving vaccine. This was nearly a miracle in an age with little knowledge of bacteriology and only basic technology.
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Encased in this key chain and pendant are Dermacentor andersoni ticks, the first species identified as transmitting Rocky Mountain spotted fever. This might strike us as an odd thing to do with ticks, but these trinkets symbolize the diseases carried by insects that the scientists of the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse would go on to research, including typhus, tularemia, mosquito-borne encephalitis, and plague as well as Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
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Today the Rocky Mountain Laboratories inhabit an entire campus where scientists conduct basic research on Lyme disease, prion diseases, antibiotic-resistant bacteria, Ebola, and coronavirus diseases like SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. We’ve come a long way in the 100 years since the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse became a laboratory to study Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Visit more of this online history to learn about the people and their work at the schoolhouse laboratory.
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