Department of Bacteriology and Immunology, Harvard University Medical School, Boston.
J Exp Med. 1930 Oct 31;52(5):661-8. doi: 10.1084/jem.52.5.661.
Our experiments have shown that the Mooser bodies or Rickettsiae derived from guinea pigs with Mexican typhus fever can survive in bedbugs after intra-coelomic injection for 10 days, remaining capable of infection. We have also succeeded in similarly infecting bedbugs by allowing them to feed on benzolized rats in whose blood Rickettsiae had been shown to be present. Injection of the organs of such bedbugs 5 days after the last, 9 days after the first infectious feeding into guinea pigs produced typical Mexican typhus fever. Some of the guinea pigs infected with such bedbug organs and passing through a typical typhus proved to be immune to subsequent inoculation with the European disease. Attempts to infect normal guinea pigs by allowing infected bedbugs to feed on them or by rubbing the feces into the uninjured skin have, so far, been unsuccessful. We have not, therefore, completed the cycle proving that bedbugs can transmit the disease, but we have shown that this is a possibility when dealing with man, obviously more susceptible to the disease than any of our experimental animals. The ease with which the Rickettsiae seem to survive in the bedbugs suggests the desirability of investigating other common insects for a similar capacity of harboring the typhus Rickettsiae-experiments which we have not yet had the time to carry out.
我们的实验表明，从感染墨西哥斑疹伤寒的豚鼠体内提取的莫氏小体或立克次体，在腹腔注射 10 天后仍能在臭虫体内存活，并保持感染能力。我们还成功地让臭虫吸食苯化的老鼠，这些老鼠的血液中存在立克次体，从而使臭虫感染。在最后一次喂食 9 天后，给这些臭虫注射器官，然后将其注射到豚鼠体内，可引发典型的墨西哥斑疹伤寒。一些感染了这种臭虫器官并经历了典型斑疹伤寒的豚鼠对随后用欧洲疾病接种具有免疫力。让受感染的臭虫叮咬正常豚鼠或用臭虫粪便擦拭未受伤的皮肤来感染正常豚鼠的尝试迄今为止都没有成功。因此，我们尚未完成证明臭虫可以传播疾病的循环，但我们已经表明，在涉及人类时，这是一种可能性，人类显然比我们的任何实验动物更容易感染这种疾病。立克次体似乎在臭虫体内如此容易存活，这表明有必要研究其他常见昆虫是否具有携带斑疹伤寒立克次体的类似能力——我们还没有时间进行这些实验。
