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 to make railway ties for the Northern Pacific Railroad, 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 virology and only basic technology.
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This drawing shows the spotted fever rash on a leg. It was drawn in 1903 by Dr. John F. Anderson when he became one of the first scientists to investigate Rocky Mountain spotted fever in Montana. Anderson was a U.S. Public Health Service officer assigned to the Hygienic Laboratory, which later became the National Institutes of Health.
Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1006
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Image: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 1533-1
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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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This keychain and pendant belonged to Dr. Ralph R. Parker, who played a major role in Rocky Mountain spotted fever research, and who was director of the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, from 1927 to 1949.
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Object: Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum, 98.2.1-2
