Brill's disease. 1. Clinical and laboratory diagnosis

Brill's disease has been defined as a typhus-like illness occurring chiefly among the immigrant populations of the Northeastern coastal cities of the United States.1 In this paper and one which is to follow2 attention is directed to recent clinical and laboratory studies of Brill's disease which emphasize that: (1) the present diagnosistic criteria must be revised; (2) the reported incidence of Brill's disease may be expected to increase; (3) Brill's disease may indeed be important in initiating new epidemics of louse-borne typhus, and (4) the etiologic agent, isolated from 7 patients, is indistinguishable from that of classic epidemic typhus.