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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)
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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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The Montana Bureau of Entomology, Bureau of Survey, and the Agriculture Experiment Station began coordinating studies on control of RMSF by King, Birdseye, Arthur H. Howell, and M.H. Spaulding.
1911
Dr. Thomas B. McClintic was sent by the PHS to start a tick control program by cattle dipping of livestock and exterminating gophers. Because the Montana State Board of Health bypassed Robert Cooley, Entomologist of Montana State University, who had promoted the existing efforts, there was rivalry, duplication, and animosity. This led to the creation Montana Board of Entomology in 1913, with Cooley named as Montana State Entomologist.
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McClintic died of RMSF in route to the Hygienic Laboratory in Washington, D.C.
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Dr. Lundsford D. Fricks was sent by the PHS to replace McClintic at the Victor, Montana, laboratory.
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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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After the death of a prominent Montana State legislator and his wife from RMSF, the U.S. Congress mandated that the PHS to return to its research on the disease. Dr. Thomas Parran was sent to Montana to discuss how the PHS and the State of Montana could cooperate. Parker was employed by PHS to continue his RMSF studies and Dr. Roscoe R. Spencer was sent by the PHS to work with him.
1921
George Cowan was made Deputy Chief of Tick Control work at the laboratory.
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The Montana Board of Health held first conference on RMSF. Dr. Hideyo Noguchi of the Rockefeller Institute described a vaccine he had tested. But when the vaccine was tested on humans, it was soon abandoned because of serum sickness.
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A mountain goat with thousands of engorged ticks is taken by George Cowan at the Canyon Creek Schoolhouse laboratory. These ticks, picked off and sent with Spencer to Washington, D.C. for research, jump-started the development of a vaccine for RMSF.
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Dr. Frederick Breinl of Czechoslovakia reported a typus vaccine produced by phenol treatment of the gut of infected ticks.
1924
In the Hygienic Laboratory in Washington, D.C., Spencer developed an experimental vaccine using phenol and conducted animal efficacy studies in guinea pigs.
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Spencer’s and Parker’s first report on the RMSF vaccine is published in Public Health Reports.
R. R. Spencer and R. R. Parker. "Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: Experimental Studies on Tick Virus." Public Health Reports (1896-1970), Vol. 39, No. 48 (Nov. 28, 1924), 302. Download the PDF. (1.27 MB)
February 1925
They conducted efficacy and safety tests of the vaccine on monkeys.
R.R. Spencer and R.R. Parker. "Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: Vaccinations in Monkeys and Man." Public Health Reports, 40 (41), (October 9, 1925), 2159-2208. Download the PDF. (5.5 MB)
1925
Two quarts of vaccine, at estimated cost of $20 per dose, were produced in the Canyon Creek schoolhouse laboratory. Then followed the immunization of 34 people, mostly lab workers.
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Arthur LeRoy Kerlee and Spencer investigated the Weil-Felix reaction as a possible diagnostic test for RMSF.
A. L. Kerlee and R. R. Spencer. "Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Preliminary Report on the Weil-Felix Reaction." Public Health Reports (1896-1970), Vol. 44, No. 4 (Jan. 25, 1929), 179-182. Download the PDF. (399 kB)
February 14, 1928
Arthur L. Kerlee died of RMSF. He had not received the full vaccine course.
May 1928
Building One of the “Montana Research Laboratory” was completed and the PHS leased the building from the State of Montana. The laboratory produced 34,000 doses of vaccine. Spencer was recalled to the Hygienic Laboratory in Washington, D.C., and Parker became the laboratory’s director.
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Drs. Ida Bengston and Rolla Dyer of the NIH published a report on the cultivation of RMSF rickettsia in developing chick embryo. This followed earlier reports by Dr. Ernest Goodpasture and others on use of the technique for the growth of viruses.
I.A. Bengtson, R.E. Dyer. "Cultivation of the Virus of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever in the Developing Chick Embryo." Public Health Reports (1896-1970), Vol. 50, No. 43 (Oct. 25, 1935), pp. 1489-1498
1936
Dr. Herald R. Cox joined RML to find a simple method to produce vaccines and perfected the method of using chicken embryos (eggs), publishing on this in 1938. One bacteriologist and two technicians could now prepare 40 to 50 liters of vaccine a week. The technique was also useful in producing other vaccines and is still used for some vaccines. After Cox’s innovation, the cost per dose of RMSF vaccine went from $20 to $1.
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The Washington Star published “Tick is Conquered,” Lucy Salamanca, describing in some detail the work on RMSF and Spencer and Parker’s development of the vaccine.
L. Salamanca. "Tick is Conquered: Scientific G-Men Perfect Vaccine Against Rocky Mountain Scourge After Six Experimenters Lose Lives." Washington, D.C. Sunday Star, March 28, 1937. Download the transcript. (75 kB)
1937
RML became part of the Division of Infectious Diseases, NIH.
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“Green Light” premieres as a movie starring Errol Flynn. The plot included the main character testing the RMSF vaccine on himself.
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