Fevers, Ticks, and Caviar

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DATE: 1965

LENGTH: 68 min

CATEGORY: Research and Documentation, Color, Silent

CREATOR: Telford H. Work

Summary

The pair of films titled Space, Bears, Ticks, Tulips and Fevers, Ticks and Caviar are informal records of a month-long mission to explore and evaluate research into outbreaks of four hemorrhagic fevers across the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Despite Cold War tensions in the political realm, exchange agreements in place between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. allowed for joint research in the health sciences. The Soviet group was organized by Mikhail Chumakov, the renowned Soviet microbiologist and virologist best known for his work on the mass production of the polio vaccine. The American contingent was sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Telford Work represented the CDC and was joined epidemiologists, virologists and parasitologists from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Naval Medical Research Unit, and the National Institutes of Health….Read The Essay

Supplementary Materials

Stills from Fevers, Ticks, and Caviar

A group of cars and people standing in a hilly field talking with each other

Fevers, Ticks, and Caviar

A man holding a camera, a woman holding a camera, and a man posing and smiling at their distorted reflections

Four men and one women in a motorboat on the waters looking at the camera and at the outdoor scenery

A group of school children gathered around the camera with curious and smiling faces

A group of researchers, doctors, and nurses gathered around an outdoor bench with maps and documents lying on it

Two men standing on both sides of a map propped outdoors and giving instructions to others

A man holding a camera with one black bird on each shoulder smiles at the camera

Three women work around a table with one taking notes, one holding a test tube, and another reading from a paper

A brown and white cow going through a sprayer system

A group of people standing and smiling at the camera

A man in beige-colored clothes and a hat waving a long dowel with a bag-like net in a field

Three men standing around freshly caught fish on a boat

Three people digging into a bowl of caviar with their silver spoons

Two people holding onto a cow while one person plucks ticks off of it

A group of people at an outdoor seating restaurant watching a woman performing calculations on an abacus

A group of children in a rural eastern European village gather around and look at the camera

A marching band and other people marching in a parade with a tan European-style building in the background

A building with a Russian sign, "Слава КПСС," that translates to "Glory to the CPSU" on its roof

A red and white sign with Vladimir Lenin's face and Russian text

A poster in Russian with a large sketch of a tick and text that warns people of ticks

A doctor pulling away the clothes of a man lying on an exam table, revealing bruisings and discolorations on the partially undressed man

Other Films Featured in the Essay “The Films of Virologist Telford Work”

Maturation of a Medic

St. Louis Encephalitis Epidemic

Space, Bears, Ticks, Tulips

Pharaohs and Fellahs

Kyasanur Forest Disease

Monsoon Mosaic

In the Collections of the National Library of Medicine

NLM Historical Audiovisuals Collection

For a list of all cataloged Telford Work films in the collection visit the NLM LocatorPlus Catalog. Catalog records include holdings information and links to digitized films in NLM Digital Collections when available. Titles not available in NLM Digital Collections can be requested for viewing on-demand. Contact the Historical Audiovisuals curator via the NLM Support Center.

NLM Archives and Modern Manuscripts Collections

History of Medicine Finding Aids is the central access point, provided by the Archives and Modern Manuscripts, Prints and Photographs, and Historical Audiovisuals collections, for information and descriptions of archival collections at the National Library of Medicine. Explore the complete Finding Aid to the Telford H. Work Papers.

The following images are selections from the Telford H. Work Papers, Series 14: Photographs, 1940s–1970s.

A black and white image of a white man in a lab coat sitting at a desk with the world map behind him

A photograph of a middle-aged white man in a plaid shirt and black pants standing to the right of an older white man looking at the insects in his mosquito catcher

A man on the left dressed in a lab coat and a man on the right dressed in a suit both pick ticks off one tree each with tweezers in their hands

Six men, both young and old, do research outside on a porch. Three are shirtless, one is in a tank top, and the other two are wearing short sleeve button up shirts

An older couple posing together with a younger, middle-aged man standing next to them in the backyard patio

An ID card in Arabic featuring a white male in a suit and tie

A photograph of three Japanese men and five Japanese women standing beside an army truck with two white soldiers and a building with trees behind them

A white man in a red flannel and hat reading from a small book to a Sami man dressed in indigenous clothing with a lake, trees, and mountains in the background

Two white men and two men of color work outside with test tubes, nets, and tables underneath a tree

A candid photograph of two white men smiling in suits with a white woman wearing a dress, pearl necklace, and pearl earrings standing between them

A white woman in a dress with a handbag and pearl jewelry listening to a white man in a suit standing next to her. In the background are three Indian men and one Indian woman

Two white men crouched down in the bushes by a river, looking inside a cup

A cartoon poster in Russian featuring a magnifying glass with an enlarged tick in the top half and a group of people demonstrating tick inspections in the bottom half

A group of Indian male workers, with Indian female helpers, posing on a building's exterior scaffolding

A photograph of forty to sixty people, containing predominantly men and only three women, dressed in lab coats outside the steps of a building

An older white male with glasses, a hat, and jacket tending to the arm of a shirtless black boy with four black people observing and standing behind them. In the background are outdoor wooden tables and chairs, huts, and a Jeep

A white male standing outside in a striped short sleeve shirt and khaki pants with a black bird on his left shoulder and another black bird on his right shoulder. A vintage camera and tripod is placed in front of him.

A white male with glasses holding onto a crow while another white male draws blood from the crow using a syringe

From left to right, a white male, Indonesian man, white female, and another Indonesian man sit with tea and tea cups in front of them and a blackboard with a large table and numbers located on the wall behind them

A white male in a military visor cap sitting inside a military vehicle holding and reading a map of Japan and Korea

An older white male on his knees examining a shirtless Indian man lying down on the ground with a thermometer in his mouth

A white male in a lab coat blowing into a long pipette in a makeshift lab

A white male sitting behind a film projector with a group of black women and children sitting criss-crossed on the ground with mats, looking at a projection

A white man in military clothing looking down at the film camera in his hands while he stands up against a military vehicle

A Middle Eastern man in traditional Emirati attire and a white male in a military visor cap and long sleeve buttoned shirt smiling and posing towards the camera

Two white men sitting outside in camping chairs with a vintage camera and sign to the right that reads, "Have Your Party Photographed / Yosemite National Park / Yosemite Park and Curry Co." with six sample photographs on the sign

Related Resources from the National Library of Medicine

Medicine on Screen

Also on Medicine on Screen is an essay “An Epidemiological Expedition Into the Interior of Africa” by Paul Theerman, PhD, that discusses another film by Work, Reconnaissance for Yellow Fever in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Sudan, 1954 in the NLM Collections. NLM also holds a silent version, Yellow Fever in the Sudan, that provided the footage for Reconnaissance for Yellow Fever.

Circulating Now

Learn more about collections related to virology on Circulating Now, specifically, see NLM Collections Tour: Epidemics and NLM Collections Tour: Vaccines.

MedlinePlus

For trusted, current health information explore the MedlinePlus health topic on viral infections. Learn about current research and education in virology in the MedlinePlus Magazine article “The Montana Wild Virus Hunt.”

External Resources

Articles and Websites

“Telford H. Work: A Tribute,” by Charles H. Calisher, Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association, 1996, accessed via The Biodiversity Library, cited in PubMed

“Debunking COVID-19 Myths” from the Mayo Clinic

Virology at NIH

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and ultimately prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. Learn more about the NIAID Laboratory of Virology.

Fevers, Ticks, and Caviar

Summary

Supplementary Materials

Stills from Fevers, Ticks, and Caviar

Other Films Featured in the Essay “The Films of Virologist Telford Work”

In the Collections of the National Library of Medicine

NLM Historical Audiovisuals Collection

NLM Archives and Modern Manuscripts Collections

Related Resources from the National Library of Medicine

Medicine on Screen

Circulating Now

MedlinePlus

External Resources

Articles and Websites

Virology at NIH

More Medicine on Screen

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