Q FEVER IN THE UNITED STATES

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Abstract
In March 1946 there occurred at Amarillo, Texas, an explosive outbreak of acute febrile illnesses which was shown1 to be closely related to or identical with Q fever. The other papers in this series deal with the epidemiologic, serologic and rickettsial data on this outbreak. It is the purpose of this report to present some of the clinical features observed in these cases. The clinical data were obtained mainly from the 18 hospitalized patients since the remaining 37 patients treated at home, although the cases were similar, were not so completely observed. While several of those who remained at home were seriously ill, other employees contracted mild, influenza-like illnesses and in 1 or 2 instances remained at work during the illness. Six instances of probable subclinical or inapparent infection were uncovered through serologic tests for Q fever on workers presumably exposed to the disease but without a history of