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The Montana State Board of Health was created.
1902 1902
Dr. G. T. McCullough published on 36 cases of RMSF in Bitterroot.
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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.
1921 1921
APRIL: Canyon Creek and Hamilton, Montana, voted to consolidate their schools in Hamilton, leaving the Canyon Creek schoolhouse empty.
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SEPTEMBER: The laboratory moved into the old Canyon Creek schoolhouse to focus its research on RMSF. The laboratory was identified as a PHS organization under Spencer, although Parker handled the day-to-day affairs and research when Spencer was in Washington, D.C. at the Hygienic Laboratory conducting RMSF experiments there.
1922 1922
JUNE 30: William Gittinger, laboratory assistant, died of RMSF at age 22.
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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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1930
MAY 26: The Ransdell Act, signed by President Herbert Hoover, created the National Institute of Health (singular) (NIH) out of the Hygienic Laboratory. The Act also authorized new funds and buildings and called for the PHS (of which the NIH is a part) to enlarge its work on RMSF and other tick-borne diseases. The same year, the State of Montana adopted a resolution calling for the purchase of Building One by the federal government and assumption of the work at the laboratory because the vaccine was needed all over the United States and the State of Montana should not have had to bear all of the costs itself.
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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.
1937
MARCH 28: 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)
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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.
1942-1948 1948
RML produced RMSF, typhus, and yellow fever vaccines for use by the U.S. military during World War II. Additional buildings built to enable this effort.
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