Brucellosis Having made the discovery that the bacteria were certainly nearly identical and perhaps totally so, Evans then wondered why Malta fever was not widely diagnosed or reported in the United States. She began to wonder whether many cases of vaguely defined febrile illnesses were in fact caused by the drinking of raw (unpasteurized) milk. During the 1920s, this hypothesis was vindicated as it was found that although raw milk causes no problems most of the time, there is greater risk and unpredictability about when and where the foodborne illness exceptions may strike. Such illnesses ranged from undiagnosed and untreated GI
Brucellosis "reliably" safe as the alternative. In the decades after Evans's work, it was worked out that this genus, which received the name "Brucella" in honor of Bruce, contained several species with varying virulence. The name "brucellosis" gradually replaced the 19th-century names Mediterranean fever and Malta fever. In 1989, neurologists in Saudi Arabia discovered "neurobrucellosis", a neurological involvement in brucellosis. These obsolete names have previously been applied to brucellosis: "Brucella" species were weaponized by several advanced countries by the mid-20th century. In 1954, "B. suis" became the first agent weaponized by the United States at its Pine Bluff Arsenal near Pine