RESIDUAL EFFECTS OF RICKETTSIAL DISEASE ON THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
- 1 October 1952
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Medical Association (AMA) in A.M.A. Archives of Internal Medicine
- Vol. 90 (4) , 444-455
- https://doi.org/10.1001/archinte.1952.00240100021003
Abstract
ROCKY Mountain spotted fever is one of the severest of all infectious diseases. Essentially it is a specific generalized intracellular infection of small peripheral blood vessels. In untreated patients the rickettsias circulate in the blood during the first week and part of the second week after infection. The organisms first invade the nuclei of capillary endothelial cells, where they multiply in great numbers and destroy the cells. From there the lesion extends centripetally along the intima into slightly larger vessels (the arterioles), where smooth muscle cells of the media are also invaded and destroyed.1This destruction of muscle cells is a distinctive feature of Rocky Mountain spotted fever (Fig. 1). With the death of cells necrosis occurs in the intima and media of the vessels, resulting in thrombosis and extravasation of blood. As a result of the thrombosis, microinfarcts are formed, chiefly in the skin, subcutaneous tissues, and centralThis publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: