COMMENTARY: Wherry WB, Lamb BH. Infection of man withBacterium tularense.J Infect Dis 1914; 15:331–40.

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Abstract
In his Harvey lecture of 1927, Edward Francis commented that tularemia was discovered by the US Public Health Service and was “elucidated from beginning to end by American investigators alone” [1, page 411].We now know that the disease is endemic worldwide, in an area spanning the Northern Hemisphere, from ∼30 to 70 degrees north latitude. However, there are scattered reports of cases occurring further north; as far south as Mexico, Venezuela, and North Africa; and in other unexpected places [2, 3]. Descriptions consistent with the symptoms of the disease, dating from hundreds of years ago, can be found scattered in early medical reports from Europe [4]. Notwithstanding our national pride in the elucidation and naming of tularemia, a reading in the Old Testament (Leviticus 11:6–7) warns against touching or eating wild hares, and a description in the Japanese literature in 1837 clearly describes the disease that we now recognize as tularemia [5].

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