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1899 Dr. Edward E. Maxey of Boise, Idaho, published the first clinical description of Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) and attributed the disease to melted snow water.
Maxey, E. "Some observations on the so-called spotted fever of Idaho." Medical Sentinel, 7(1), 1899, 733-438.
1901 The Montana State Board of Health was created.
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Spring 1902 Dr Albert F. Longeway, Secretary of the Montana State Board of Health, arranged for Drs. Louis A. Wilson and William M. Chowning of the University of Minnesota to study RMSF in the Bitterrroot Valley area. They noted that the disease was limited to the west side of the river, identified the wood tick as the probable vector, and the Columbian ground squirrel as the infected animal host for the ticks. Then tentatively identified a protozoa as the infectious agent. They also reported the clinical and pathological syndromes.
Wilson, L.B.; Chowning, W.M., "Studies in Pyroplamosis hominis. ( Spotted fever or tick fever of the Rocky mountains.)." Infectious Diseases, 1, 1904, 31-57.
June 1902 U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) Surgeon General Walter Wyman sent Dr. Julius O. Cobb to Missoula, Montana, to investigate RMSF. He joined the work of Wilson and Chowning.
J. O. Cobb. "The so-called "spotted fever" of the Rocky Mountains—A new disease in Bitter Root Valley." Public Health Reports (1896-1970), Vol. 17, No. 33 (August 15, 1902), pp. 1868-1870. Download PDF (497 kB)
1903 Dr. John F. Anderson, Assistant Director of the Hygienic Laboratory (precursor to the National Institutes of Health) was sent to the Bitterrroot at the request of Dr. Thomas Tuttle, Montana Board of Health. Anderson published a 50-page pamphlet providing confirmatory evidence to the work of Wilson and Chowning, adding his own observations and drawings, and probably coined the name “Rocky Mountain spotted fever.” Anderson sent ticks to the Hygienic Laboratory for study as RMSF vectors. The taxonomic identification as Dermacentor andersoni was assigned to these ticks.
J.F. Anderson. "Spotted Fever (Tick Fever) of the Rocky Mountains." Hygienic Laboratory Bulletin 14, July 1903. Download PDF (21 MB)
1903 Robert A. Cooley becomes the Montana State Entomologist.
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May 1905 Dr. Lucien P. McCalla and H. A. Brereton, of Boise, Idaho, transmitted RMSF to two volunteers by tick bite with a tick removed from a patient with the disease. This was the milder version of the disease and both volunteers survived. Their work was not published until 1908.
L.P. McCalla, H.A. Brereton. “Direct Transmission from Man to Man of the Rocky Mountain Spotted (Tick) Fever,” Medical Sentinel, 16, 1908, 87-88.
1906 Dr. Howard T. Ricketts of the University of Chicago, attracted by the controversy created by Stiles’ report, came to Missoula, Montana, with some financial support from the American Medical Association and counties in the Bitterroot Valley. Dr. Willard V. King, a PHS officer detailed to Montana at the same time, worked in close collaboration with Ricketts. Between 1906 and 1908, Ricketts and King demonstrated conclusively that the tick was a vector of RMSF, and that RMSF could be transmitted from man to guinea pigs and monkeys. They also presented evidence that humans were accidentally infected (they were not the ticks’ intended meal) and suggested that RMSF might be controlled by reducing ticks on large animals through dipping and on small animals through extermination.
H.T. Ricketts. "Observations on the Virus and Means of Transmission of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever." The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Jan. 1, 1907), 141-153. Download the PDF. (1.2 MB)
1909 King was joined by Clarence Birdseye and the pair made major contributions on ecology of the tick-host cycle.
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1919 Dr. Simeon B. Wolbach, Harvard University, who began investigations in 1916, published confirmation of Ricketts’ observations on the cause of RMSF—bacteria carried by ticks—and established the bacterium as one of a new genus designated “Rickettsiae” by Dr. Rocha Lima in 1916. Wolbach named the RMSF bacterium Rickettsia rickettsii.
S.B. Wolbach. "Studies on Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever." Journal of Medical Research, 41 (1919), 1-197. Download the PDF.
April 1921 Canyon Creek and Hamilton, Montana, voted to consolidate their schools in Hamilton, leaving the Canyon Creek schoolhouse empty.
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