tick-fe'ver

i. Any infectious disease of man or the lower animals caused by a protozoan blood parasite transmitted through the agency of a tick. 2. African relapsing* fever. 3. Texas cattle fever. 4. Rocky Mountain spotted fever; an acute infectious disease, of high mortality, characterized by arthritic and muscular pains, a moderately high continuous fever, and a profuse petechial eruption; it occurs in the spring of the year in several of the States in the Rocky Mountain region; the pathogenic organism not deflnitely determined (see Rickett's* organism and Babesia hominis), but it is transmitted by two or more species of tick of the genus Derma cent or, D. venustus and D. modest us both being implicated.