Presence of Spirochetes in the Urine and Prostatic Fluid of Patients with Relapsing Fever

Summary

The urine of 27 (65.9%) of 41 patients with relapsing fever contained spirochaetes morphologically indistinguishable from Spirochaeta recurrentis. In most instances the organisms were motionless or dead. One of the 3 squirrels inoculated with urinary sediment developed relapsing fever, showing that viable and virulent Spirochaetæ recurrentis were present in the urine. Viable and virulent Spirochaetæ recurrentis were also recovered from the prostatic fluid of one patient.