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Mud fever, sewerman’s flu, swamp fever — those are just a few of the monikers for the illness caused by the bacterium Leptospira.

Photograph: Mike Lane /Alamy Weil's disease, believed to have caused the death this week of Olympic gold medal-winning rower , is the acute human form of a bacterial infection with a raft of different names: mud fever, swamp fever, haemorrhagic jaundice, swineherd's disease, sewerman's flu.

I hope men do not get mud fever like horses; if so, we ought to do so!