Endemic typhus fever has not been reported, heretofore, as occurring in the Philippine Islands. Reference to the Reports of the Director of Health,1 from July 1, 1911, to Jan. 1, 1914, shows that occasional cases resembling typhus fever have occurred in Manila, but "not sufficient confirmatory evidence could be obtained as to the correctness of the diagnosis to warrant reporting them as typhus."
It is believed that sufficient data—clinical, laboratory and epidemiologic—are embodied in this report to show that typhus in endemic form unquestionably exists in the Philippines, at least in the Lanao section of Mindanao.
Twenty-three cases have been studied in the military hospital at Camp Keithley. The first case, erroneously diagnosed as malaria, was admitted Aug. 28, 1914. During September four additional cases were under observation, and it became evident that the disease was not one of those ordinarily encountered.
Tentative clinical diagnoses