VIRAL INFECTIONS 33i

BOUTONNEUSE FEVER (,Rickettsia conori). The most important reservoir of this normally
tick-borne disease is the dog. In south-eastern France the specific flea of the European rabbit
was found to be infected and the presumption has been made that these fleas acquired the
infection from voles (if so, a most accidental mode of infection).
Q-FEVER (Coxiella burned). A cosmopolitan disease of wild and domestic animals. In man,
who often acquires the infection through the respiratory tract, it causes usually a mild febrile
illness resembling influenza. Although ticks are the normal vectors, at least one species of
rodent flea carries a natural infection in Asiatic Russia.

Viral infections:

LYMPHOCYTIC CHORIOMENINGITIS. An acute but rarely fatal infectious disease of man,

clinically rather variable, the virus of which occurring naturally in a large variety of mammals
(especially mice), and in three species of rodent fleas in the U.S.S.R.

TICK-BORNE ENCEPHALITIS. This disease ranges throughout the Palaearctic and Oriental
Regions; sheep and goats are among the principal hosts. In Asiatic Russia the spring-summer
encephalitis form produces a more severe illness in man than the milder forms known as West
Russian and Central European encephalitis. Although ticks are the main vectors, the virus has
been isolated from several species of fleas in Poland and the U.S.S.R. However, fleas are
possibly not to be considered as important vectors in any practical epidemiological sense.
NEOPLASMS. Transmission of virus-induced neoplasms, including leukaemias, by fleas is
currently being investigated.

It will be evident from these notes that there is an apparent preponderance of natural
infections of fleas in eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. This is presumably partly due to the fact
that research on this subject has been more intense there than elsewhere.

IDENTIFICATION
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It is mainly the fleas of terrestrial mammals, representing nearly 90% of the known species,
that are of medical importance and such species figure largely in studies on e.g. plague
transmission. Bat-fleas and bird-fleas are therefore not considered here (the European
chicken-flea Ceratophyllus gallinae (Schrank) can occasionally be a nuisance).
Several species of fleas parasitic on synanthropic hosts have become virtually cosmopolitan
and, being common and secondarily associated with man, they are of prime medical
importance and as such are the most widely and frequently used species for experimental
purposes. A separate and fully illustrated key for these common fleas is therefore provided
here. It should be noted that like most other fleas, these common species have related forms
which resemble them closely. It is not difficult to give a flea a wrong name! Apart from the
classical example of misdeterminations with puzzling results by the Plague Commission in
India in the beginning of this century