The U.S. Public Health Service · Episode 19 of 34 · 34 min
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: The Lab in the Schoolhouse
On the west side of Montana's Bitterroot Valley a tick-borne fever killed up to 80 to 90 percent of those it struck. This is the rare story where the Public Health Service's own lab did the heroic science: from an abandoned Hamilton schoolhouse, Roscoe Spencer and Ralph Parker made a vaccine from ground-up infected ticks, and Spencer injected himself in 1924. The schoolhouse grew into the Rocky Mountain Laboratory.
Who's who
- Howard Taylor RickettsProved a tick carried the fever; Rickettsia is named for him
- Roscoe R. SpencerPHS bacteriologist who injected himself with the experimental vaccine in 1924
- Ralph R. Parker+1 more episodeEntomologist who co-developed the vaccine and later directed the lab
- Julius CobbDoctor sent to the Bitterroot Valley in 1902 to investigate
Where it happens
- Bitterroot Valley, Montana+1 more episodeRegion where the fever killed many settlers
- Hamilton, Montana+1 more episodeSite of the schoolhouse laboratory that became the Rocky Mountain Laboratory
Timeline
- c. 1906Ricketts proves tick transmission and identifies the organism
- 1910Ricketts dies of typhus in Mexico
- 1922PHS sets up a laboratory in an abandoned Hamilton schoolhouse
- May 19, 1924Spencer injects himself with the experimental vaccine
- 1925Vaccination begins in the valley
- By 1940About 500,000 people inoculated
Still debated
The vaccine reduced severity and deaths but was not fully protective and was later superseded. The 80 to 90 percent mortality applies to the valley's west side, and credit is shared among Spencer, Parker, and Ricketts.