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Cases of rickettsiosis of all kinds have reduced to mere sporadic episodes in the last thirty years all over the Mediterranean. But in the last five years, some regions of Italy (Lazio, Liguria, Sicily, Sardinia) have registered an extraordinary epidemiological event, the endemoepidemic expansion of boutonneuse fever which was previously only seen in about thirty cases a year. It is now on the increase and 864 cases were notified in 1979, but the real incidence of the disease is much greater. The phenomenon would not appear to have been seen elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Ecological changes involving carrier ticks must be presumed

In the last few years some cases of boutonneuse fever have been "imported" into Central and Northern European countries, where it was previously unknown, by tourists returning from African or Mediterranean countries where the disease is endemic. Data on the subject are summarised and the possibility of ticks carrying the disease being transported into disease-free countries is analysed. The results of a clinicoepidemiological survey on boutonneuse fever contracted by foreigners in areas where the disease is actively endemic are reported. It would appear the few cases were involved and that these were quickly recognised, treated and cured.

The efficacy of medical treatment of peripheral obliterating arteriopathies on an aetiopathogenetic basis in the light of diabetes and atherosclerosis is discussed. The pros and cons of management with vasoactive drugs exercising a dilatatory action of choice on the metarterioles and the arteriolocapillary sphincters are summarised, together with the possibilities offered by such drugs. A example of the short-term effects of chorionic gonadotrophin in atherosclerotic forms is presented. Such effects include the improvement of arteriolocapillary flow and the correction of dyslipidaemia. It is suggested that chorionic gonadotrophin can be successfully associated in consecutive courses with vasoactive drugs and anticoagulants to obtain long-term success, even in cases treated for ten years.