"HEVY DISEASE" IN METOHIA, KOSH

<p>Acute louse born typhus is a nightmare to which our scientific medicine have provided significant importance.<br />Doctors in former Yugoslavia deem that the louse born typhus was rooted in Bosnia and Herzegovina from long time ago,<br />while in Serbia were individual cases without areas with pediculosis before the First World War, and there were no cases of<br />body pediculosis in villages. The author conducts medical, but also historical and linguistical research in order of collecting<br />data on louse borne typhus cases through information on causes of death written in death certificates. The research was done in more phases. The citizens were tested through questionnaires at the area of lower prevalence of louse borne typhus (only sero-positive cases); then at the area of higher prevalence (population through random sample). Contact with R. Prowazeki was established through sensitive serological method. In the final step, the popular name for typhus syndrome was checked - that is, if that name has been written into the death certificate. The objective of the research is to check if there were cases of louse borne typhus in the area of Metohia, and that was done through checking the death certificates. The author proves the endemics of the disease through explicit and implicit use of the name for the louse borne typhus during 1914 to 1935. This empirical check is the basis for the future researches of earlier endemic of louse borne typhus, this time through checking older documents from the used death certificates, which is kept in the archive of Serbia, town of Kotor, and other places. </p>