Historical perspectives in leptospirosis.

The nineteenth century brought rational insight in the certain activities like swimming) and disease were already cause and transmission of infectious diseases. It was the recognized before the causative leptospires were known. One dawn of microbiology as a science with the discovery of of the explanations of Weil’s disease was the idea of a miasma, microbes as causative agents of infectious diseases. There are a soil and climate-related cause of disease. Miasma was a sort plenty of reports in the 19 century of outbreaks of icteric of gas, generated by decaying organic matter and oozing out fevers. These were described under a variety of names such of marshy land that could cause disease. Those who held this as Griesinger’s bilious typhoid, bilious or hepatic fever, hepatic view found support in the fact that hygienic measures were typhoid, icteric typhoid, catarrhal icterus and febrile icterus. effective. They noticed that the disease could be prevented Some of these epidemics may have been leptospirosis. In 1886, by avoiding bathing or swimming in places, where Weil’s a disease entity was described that got no name but was disease was known to occur or by draining water from mines named after the man who defined it: Weil’s disease. Yet, at where miners were known to contract the disease. These that time the difference between leptospirosis, yellow fever hygienic actions would prevent contact with the harmful local and other diseases with icterus was by no means clear. The miasma. The etiology was to be found in the influence of a similarity was such that leptospirosis was sometimes called local miasma whose specific qualities would lead to Weil’s the yellow fever of the temperate zones. Yellow fever was disease in the temperate zones and a similar disease, yellow recognized already for a very long time in the tropics and fever, in the tropics. The miasma theory soon faded away. hugely feared as it caused devastating epidemics. Even before the causative agent was discovered, it was found that yellow Spirochaetes as causative agents fever was transmitted by mosquitoes and that the disease could be effectively controlled by destroying mosquitoes and their breeding places.