In 1911, George W. McCoy, Charles W. Chapin, William B. Wherry, and B. H. Lamb elucidated a new disease, tularemia. found in ground squirrels in Tulare County, California. Later, Wherry and Lamb isolated the germ from rabbits, also known as “rabbit fever, during an epidemic in Indiana.  ”Not until 1922 was the disease described in man, when Dr. Edward Francis described it and called it “tularemia, a new disease in man.”

Today, human tularaemia is known as a zoonotic disease usually occurring as sporadic cases or small familial outbreaks. Ticks, rodents, and rabbits are the primary reservoir hosts, but a wide variety of animal species are susceptible, including cats, dogs, livestock, and humans.