Howard Taylor Ricketts

Pathologist, born in Findlay, Ohio, USA. After taking his MD from Northwestern (1897), he continued his studies in Vienna and Paris, then in 1902 joined the department of pathology at the University of Chicago. A brilliant researcher, he wrote Infection, Immunity, and Serum Therapy (1906). He discovered the vectors of both Rocky Mountain Fever (tick) and typhus (louse) as well as the culprit micro-organisms, which were named Rickettsia in his honour. He died of typhus in Mexico City while researching the disease.

Howard Taylor Ricketts (1871-1910) was an American pathologist after whom the Rickettsiaceae family and the Rickettsiales are named. In the earlier part of his career, Ricketts undertook research at Northwestern University on blastomyosis and later at the University of Chicago on and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Ricketts was devoted to his research and, on several occasions, injected himself with a pathogen in order to measure its effects.

In 1909, Ricketts became interested in typhus due to an outbreak in Mexico City and the apparent similarity of the disease to spotted fever.