The Corps Disease: Brucellosis and Its Historical Association with the Royal Army Medical Corps

Abstract

Brucellosis (also known as Malta, Mediterranean or Undulant Fever) has aptly been nicknamed the Corps Disease because of the major role played by the Royal Army Medical Corps in elucidating its nature and discovering its mode of spread, thus leading to its prevention and eradication. This history of brucellosis, incorporating a complete bibliography of all references to the disease in the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1903 to 1992, documents the fascinating story of this association.

Biological weapons

“…Sir David Bruce, a British Army officer, was the first to isolate the organism and along with his coworkers subsequently managed to trace the epidemiology back to goat milk. He developed the first serum agglutination test for to diagnose brucellosis [12]. By the beginning of World War II, the medical and veterinary aspects of the disease had been extensively outlined, and brucellosis emerged as an attractive candidate in the still premature biowarfare industry.…”

Undifferentiated Febrile Illnesses Amongst British Troops in Helmand, Afghanistan

“…Brucellosis is named after Captain (later Major-General Sir) David Bruce RAMC, who identified the bacterium responsible in a British soldier with "Malta fever" in 1887 [11]. It had a long association with British armed forces around the Mediterranean [12] and US military cases have recently occurred Iraq [13]. Q fever outbreaks affecting more than 1000 troops were reported amongst Allied troops in Greece and Italy during World War II [14,15] and have also occurred more recently in Iraq [16].…”

“…Protozoa Malaria [2][3][4] Visceral leishmaniasis [5,6] Bacteria Enteric fever [7][8][9][10] Brucellosis [11][12][13] Q fever [14][15][16] Spirochaetes Leptospirosis [17][18][19][20][21] Relapsing fevers [22][23][24][25][26] Rickettsiae Typhus fevers [20,22,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33] Spotted fevers…”

Brucelosis: zoonosis de importancia en México

“…Él pudo reproducir la enfermedad en monos, quienes mostraron fiebre y algunos de ellos murieron. Bruce nombró a la bacteria con el nombre de Micrococcus melitensis 6 . En 1896, Bang aisló a la bacteria que generaba aborto en vacas y la nombró Bacillus abortus.…”