Alice C. Evans

Brucellosis in the United States.

UNITED STATES The earliest human cases-In 1906 the first report of a case of brucellosis contracted in this country was published by Craig; Having seen other cases in this country among soldiers who had become infected in the Philippines, he recognized the disease in a nurse who, it was believed, had contracted the infection in Washington, D. C. Because at that time the belief prevailed that brucellosis did not exist in temperate climates, it was supposed that the patient must have contracted the infection while carrying on her work of caring for returned soldiers in hospitals. That explanation is hardly satisfactory now, for we know the unlikelihood of transmission of the disease from person to person. Furthermore, the nurse had never taken care of a recognized case of brucellosis. In 1911 Ferenbaugh, and Gentry and Ferenbaugh reported 12 cases of brucellosis which they had seen that year in the goat-raising section of southwestern