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Brill-Zinsser disease is a type of epidemic typhus which recurs in someone after a long period of latency (similar to the relationship between chickenpox and shingles). This type of recurrence can also occur in immunosuppressed patients.

Before World War II, epidemic typhus was a devastating disease for humans. Epidemics occurred throughout Europe from the 17th to the 19th centuriesAlternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical ( 18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801- 1900. Events The Little Ice Age ended. It was common in prisons, where it was known as Gaol Fever. Before then there is little historical literature available. Widespread epidemics occurred during the Napoleonic WarsThe Napoleonic Wars lasted from 1804 until 1815. They were a continuation of the conflicts sparked by the French Revolution and covered the duration of the First French Empire. The First and Second Coalitions For a more detailed account see the French Rev and the Irish potato famineHistory of Ireland 1801-1922 The Irish Potato Famine also called The Great Famine or The Great Hunger ( Irish: An Gorta Mor , is the name given to a famine which struck Ireland between 1846 and 1849. The Famine was at least fifty years in the making, due of 1846Events January 5 The United States House of Representatives votes to stop sharing the Oregon Territory with the United Kingdom February 5 The Oregon Spectator becomes the first newspaper on the Pacific coast of the United States. February 10 Many Mormons to 1849Events January 23 Elizabeth Blackwell is awarded her MD by the Medical Institute of Geneva, New York, thus becoming the United States' first woman doctor January 31 Corn Laws abolished in the United Kingdom February 14 In New York City, James Knox Polk be. During World War IWorld War I (also known as the First World War , the Great War the War of the Nations and the "War to End All Wars") was a world conflict occurring from 1914 to 1918. No previous conflict had mobilized so many soldiers, or involved so many in the field of the disease caused three million deaths in RussiaThe Russian Federation ( Russian: , transliteration: Rossiyskaya Federatsiya or Rossijskaja Federacija , or Russia (Russian: , transliteration: Rossiya or Rossija , is a country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. With and more in PolandThe Republic of Poland a country in Central Europe, lies between Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, and the Baltic Sea, Lithuania and Russia (in the form of the Kaliningrad Oblast exclave) t and Romania. Even larger epidemics in the post-war chaos of Europe were only averted by the widespread use of the newly discovered DDT to kill the lice on millions of refugees and displaced persons. A vaccine was also developed in World War II, and today epidemics only occur in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and parts of Africa where living conditions and hygiene are poor.

According to Waclaw Szybalski [1], the first description of typhus was given in 1083 in a convent near Salerno, Italy. In 1546, Girolamo Fracastoro, a Florentine physician, gave another description of typhus in his famous treatise on viruses and contagion, " De Contagione et Contagiosis Morbis ."