Richards Allen L, Jiang Ju
Department of Preventive Medicine and Biostatistics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA.
Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Bethesda, MD 20817, USA.
Trop Med Infect Dis. 2020 Apr 1;5(2):49. doi: 10.3390/tropicalmed5020049.
Scrub typhus and its etiological agents, species, have been around for a very long time. Historical reference to the rickettsial disease scrub typhus was first described in China (313 AD) by Hong Ge in a clinical manual (Zhouhofang) and in Japan (1810 AD) when Hakuju Hashimoto described tsutsuga, a noxious harmful disease in the Niigata prefecture. Other clinicians and scientists in Indonesia, Philippines, Taiwan, Australia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and India reported on diseases most likely to have been scrub typhus in the early 1900s. All of these initial reports about scrub typhus were from an area later designated as the Tsutsugamushi Triangle-an area encompassing Pakistan to the northwest, Japan to the northeast and northern Australia to the south. It was not until the 21st century that endemic scrub typhus occurring outside of the Tsutsugamushi Triangle was considered acceptable. This report describes the early history of scrub typhus, its distribution in and outside the Tsutsugamushi Triangle, and current knowledge of the causative agents, species.
恙虫病及其病原体（恙虫病东方体）已经存在很长时间了。立克次体病恙虫病的历史记载最早于公元313年在中国由洪葛在一本临床手册（《肘后方》）中描述，以及于公元1810年在日本由桥本伯寿描述了新潟县的一种有害疾病“土佐热”。20世纪初，印度尼西亚、菲律宾、台湾、澳大利亚、越南、马来西亚和印度的其他临床医生和科学家报告了很可能是恙虫病的疾病。所有这些关于恙虫病的最初报告都来自一个后来被指定为恙虫病三角区的地区，该地区包括西北部的巴基斯坦、东北部的日本和南部的澳大利亚北部。直到21世纪，恙虫病三角区以外发生的地方性恙虫病才被认为是可以接受的。本报告描述了恙虫病的早期历史、其在恙虫病三角区内和区外的分布，以及对病原体（恙虫病东方体）的当前认识。
