132 THE HOUSE FLY—DISEASE CARRIER 
that typhoid patients should be considered the chief 
source and that this was due to their being not only 
more numerous than the carriers, but also to the fact 
that the germs passed by them are usually more dan¬ 
gerous. On the other hand, every infection by a ty¬ 
phoid carrier may be the first in a long series of cases; 
in fact, he may be responsible for a whole epidemic. 
His importance cannot be over-estimated. As Klinger 
says, “He is an important factor, and typhoid houses 
and typhoid areas seem to be his work.” 
In an article in the Boston Medical and Surgical 
Journal* we find the following very interesting state¬ 
ments and reports of cases of this sort, that mentioned 
in the final paragraph evidently being Typhoid Mary: 
“It is asserted by Kutscher that, in Southwestern 
Germany, direct contact is a more important factor in 
the spread of typhoid fever than polluted water, and 
that about four per cent, of typhoid patients become 
chronic carriers of the specific bacilli, which they ex¬ 
crete in both urine and feces, sometimes for long peri¬ 
ods. Doerr, for example, cites cases reported by 
Drober and Hunner, in which the bacilli were isolated 
from the gall bladder seventeen and twenty years after 
recovery, and Lentz asserts that if after ten weeks from 
convalescence the excretion of the bacilli has not ceased, 
it will most likely continue permanently and uninter¬ 
ruptedly, in spite of medication. He cites a number of 
cases in which, after ten, thirty, and even forty-two 
*The exact reference to this important article has been lost and 
cannot be found. 
