The week of July 4, 1989, had been hot but quiet in upstate New York. Marty Toly, the regional epidemiologist, was looking forward to the weekend when he received a call from the Onondaga County Health Department. A local doctor had just reported that a patient had tested positive for typhoid fever.

Read the full story of the “Mystery in the Pines” at the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. Also be sure to read the full series of Backstories in Epidemiology: True Medical Mysteries here on JPHMP Direct. These case studies, edited by Lloyd Novick, Carole Novick, and John Marr, are written in the spirit of Berton Roueche’s classic Eleven Blue Men and Other Narratives of Medical Detection. 

Read All Stories in This Series:

• Clam Aches by Cynthia Morrow, MD, MPH
• Bad Air, Bad Blood: A Homeric Admonition by John S. Marr, MD, MPH, and Robert M. Maulitz, MD
• It’s All in the Bottle by Asim A. Jani, MD, MPH
• The World’s Deadliest Poison by John S. Marr, MD, MPH, and Marcus A. Horwitz, MD
• Mystery in the Pines by Gus Birkhead, MD, MPH
• Introducing Backstories in Epidemiology: True Medical Mysteries
• Introducing a New Series of Epidemiologic Case Studies: Podcast with Dr. John Marr

Read more Backstories in Epidemiology: True Medical Mysteries, coming soon:

• Appendectomy Masquerade, an epidemic initially attributed to appendicitis in upstate New York
• The Babies Are Dying, newborn deaths in a West Virginia rural hospital nursery
• Of Bites and Men: The Most Dangerous Urban Animal, a story where the number of human bites exceeds shark bites