Definition of: tsutsugamushi disease

(ts·ts′gä·m′·shē) Pathol.
A rickettsial fever endemic in Japan and the Orient, caused by a micro-organism (Rickettsia orientalis) transmitted to man by the infected larvae of a mite (genus Trombicula): also called Japanese river fever, river fever, scrub typhus. [<Japanese tsutsugamush, a small Japanese mite <mushi a bug]