Edward Francis (1872 - 1957) was an American physician, bacteriologist, and public health researcher. He is best known for his work on tularemia, including work establishing the relationship between the deer fly vector and the bacterium that causes the disease. The genus Francisella was later named in recognition of his contributions to the study of the disease.
Career In 1900, Francis joined the Marine Hospital Service, the direct predecessor to the United States Public Health Service. During his career with the Public Health Service, he investigated several infectious diseases, including yellow fever, pellagra, tetanus, filariasis, undulant fever, and tularemia.
Tularemia research Francis became particularly associated with the investigation of tularemia during the early 20th century. In 1911, scientists in California discovered a bacterium that caused a plague-like disease in ground squirrels in Tulare County, California. They named the organism Bacterium tularense after the county.
Francis subsequently investigated "deer-fly fever", a disease occurring in Utah. During his first field investigation there, Francis himself contracted the disease. His subsequent research established that the Utah disease was caused by B. tularense, linking it to the previously described infection of California ground squirrels. He proposed the name tularemia for the disease, deriving it from the name of the bacterium. In a 1921 publication, Francis described tularemia as a specific infectious disease caused by B. tularense and recognized transmission to humans through blood feeding insects and through contact with infected rodents.
Francis also developed an agglutination test that became important in the diagnosis of tularemia. According to a later historical account by William L. Jellison, only 14 human infections with F. tularensis had been reported when Francis began his research. Approximately 800 cases were diagnosed during the following four years, many of which Francis personally confirmed by isolation of the bacterium or by agglutination testing. By 1944, he had compiled information on approximately 14,000 cases in the United States.
Awards and honors In 1928, he was awarded with the gold medal of the American Medical Association.
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