What is Mountain Fever on Little House on the Prairie

In the episode Quarantine on Little House on the Prairie, a neighboring town Elmsville suffers a serious outbreak of a deadly mountain fever.  Mr. Edwards, believing he is immune to the fever due to the fact is wife and daughter died to it, twakes Doc Baker to the town to help the sick.  However, Mr. Edwards ends up returning with the disease to Walnut Grove.

The disease portrayed in the show is Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) which was a little known disease at the time the episode takes place.  Today, we know the disease is actually carried by ticks and is not considered transmissible person to person.

Because the town goes into a lockdown during this episode, the episode gained popularity during the COVID outbreak, as many claimed this episode predicted the pandemic that resulted in much of the world locking down for a period of time.

Another episode, Plague, also drew parallels to the pandemic, when Walnut Grove suffers from an outbreak of typhus.