1 68 Our Food Mollusks 



It is just as certain that clams and mussels taken from 

 polluted waters may as readily bear the organisms of 

 typhoid, but except the " little neck," these are not so 

 often eaten uncooked, and for this reason the fever is 

 not so frequently contracted through their agency. 



One of the important facts concerning the disease is 

 that vast numbers of typhoid bacilli leave the body of 

 the patient in the digestive tract discharges and in the 

 urine, and more important still, that a convalescent from 

 the disease is as dangerous to others as a patient, if not 

 more so, for the organisms continue to appear in the dis- 

 charges from his body for many months after recovery. 

 With this knowledge of the nature of the disease, and 

 the organism causing it, its extermination seemed pos- 

 sible, and the statement was made and often repeated 

 that for every new case of typhoid there should be a 

 hanging. But recently discovered facts indicate that 

 certain persons at least, after having suffered from the 

 disease, may continue for many years, and perhaps for 

 life, to pass typhoid bacilli from the body, and that this 

 may be true even when the disease occurred in so light 

 or obscure a form that its true nature was not recog- 

 nized. 



While there is much criminal carelessness in the mat- 

 ter, especially where there is a convenient sewage system, 

 the discharges from the bodies of patients are some- 

 times disinfected before being disposed of, as of course 

 they always should be, but this is probably never true of 

 convalescents, and typhoid carriers are a constant menace 

 wherever they may go. The result is that the sewage 

 from almost any city constantly contains some of these 

 organisms which remain alive in it for a long time. 

 Even when sewage is treated in disposal plants, organ- 



