Trench fever

Trench fever (also known as "five-day fever", "quintan fever" (Latin: febris quintana), and "urban trench fever"[1]) is a moderately serious disease transmitted by body lice. It infected armies in Flanders, France, Poland, Galicia, Italy, Salonika, Macedonia, Mesopotamia, Russia and Egypt in World War I.[2][3] Three noted sufferers during WWI were the authors J. R. R. Tolkien,[4] A. A. Milne,[5] and C. S. Lewis.[6] From 1915 to 1918 between one-fifth and one-third of all British troops reported ill had trench fever while about one-fifth of ill German and Austrian troops had the disease.[2] The disease persists among the homeless.[7] Outbreaks have been documented, for example, in Seattle[8] and Baltimore in the United States among injection drug users[9] and in Marseille, France,[8] and Burundi.[10]

Trench fever
Other namesWolhynia fever, shin bone fever, Meuse fever, His disease and His–Werner disease
SpecialtyInfectious disease 
Symptomsfever
Duration5 days
Causesinfected insect bite
Preventionbody hygiene
MedicationTetracycline-group antibiotics
DeathsRare

Trench fever is also called Wolhynia fever, shin bone fever, Meuse fever, His disease and His–Werner disease or Werner-His disease (after Wilhelm His Jr. and Heinrich Werner).

The disease is caused by the bacterium Bartonella quintana (older names: Rochalimea quintana, Rickettsia quintana), found in the stomach walls of the body louse.[3] Bartonella quintana is closely related to Bartonella henselae, the agent of cat scratch fever and bacillary angiomatosis.

Signs and symptoms

The disease is classically a five-day fever of the relapsing type, rarely exhibiting a continuous course. The incubation period is relatively long, at about two weeks. The onset of symptoms is usually sudden, with high fever, severe headache, pain on moving the eyeballs, soreness of the muscles of the legs and back, and frequently hyperaesthesia of the shins. The initial fever is usually followed in a few days by a single, short rise but there may be many relapses between periods without fever.[11] The most constant symptom is pain in the legs.[3] Recovery takes a month or more. Lethal cases are rare, but in a few cases "the persistent fever might lead to heart failure".[4][11] Aftereffects may include neurasthenia, cardiac disturbances and myalgia.[11]

Pathophysiology

Bartonella quintana is transmitted by contamination of a skin abrasion or louse-bite wound with the faeces of an infected body louse (Pediculus humanus corporis). There have also been reports of an infected louse bite passing on the infection.[3][11]

Diagnosis

Serological testing is typically used to obtain a definitive diagnosis. Most serological tests would succeed only after a certain period of time past the symptom onset (usually a week). The differential diagnosis list includes typhus, ehrlichiosis, leptospirosis, Lyme disease, and virus-caused exanthema (measles or rubella).

Treatment

Tetracycline-group antibiotics (doxycycline, tetracycline) are commonly used. Chloramphenicol is an alternative medication recommended under circumstances that render use of tetracycline derivates undesirable, such as severe liver disease, kidney dysfunction, in children under nine years and in pregnant women. The medication is administered for seven to ten days.

References
  1. Rapini, Ronald P.; Bolognia, Jean L.; Jorizzo, Joseph L. (2007). Dermatology: 2-Volume Set. St. Louis: Mosby. p. 1095. ISBN 978-1-4160-2999-1.
  2. Justina Hamilton Hill (1942). Silent Enemies: The Story of the Diseases of War and Their Control. G. P. Putnam's Sons.
  3. Francis Timoney; William Arthur Hagan (1973). Hagan and Bruner's Microbiology and Infectious Diseases of Domestic Animals. Cornell University Press.
  4. John Garth (2003). Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth. HarperCollins Publishers.
  5. Humphrey Carpenter; Mari Prichard (1984). The Oxford companion to children's literature. Oxford University Press. p. 351. ISBN 9780192115829.
  6. C. S. Lewis (1955). Surprised By Joy. Harcourt.
  7. Sarah Perloff (17 January 2020). "Trench Fever". EMedicine.
  8. Ohl, M. E.; Spach, D. H. (1 July 2000). "Bartonella quintana and Urban Trench Fever". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 31 (1): 131–135. doi:10.1086/313890. PMID 10913410.
  9. Comer, James A. (25 November 1996). "Antibodies to Bartonella Species in Inner-city Intravenous Drug Users in Baltimore, Md". Archives of Internal Medicine. 156 (21): 2491–5. doi:10.1001/archinte.1996.00440200111014. PMID 8944742.
  10. Raoult, D; Ndihokubwayo, JB; Tissot-Dupont, H; Roux, V; Faugere, B; Abegbinni, R; Birtles, RJ (1998). "Outbreak of epidemic typhus associated with trench fever in Burundi". The Lancet. 352 (9125): 353–358. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(97)12433-3. PMID 9717922. S2CID 25814472.
  11. Edward Rhodes Stitt (1922). The Diagnostics and treatment of tropical diseases. P. Blakiston's Son & Co.
Classification
External resources

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