Bartonella quintana

Bartonella quintana, Rochalimaea quintana formerly called, the causative agent of the five-day fever, cried during the First World War, large epidemics among the Allied soldiers of the Western Front forth, which is why the disease was also the name of protecting grave fever. The disease is characterized by sudden onset of headache, aseptic meningitis, persistent fever and other nonspecific symptoms and from person to person by the body louse, Pediculus humanus corporis, transferred. With the decline of epidemics after the end of World War II also decreased the interest in Bartonella quintana, to the bacterium in 1992 as one of the causative agent of bacillary angiomatosis (BA ) has been identified. Recent evidence indicates that the pathogen could have significantly contributed to the loss of Napoleon's army in retreat from the Russian campaign in 1812.