544 THE TREATMENT OF DISEASES. 



typhoid fever, for the very simple reason that in its new buildings, which had been 

 erected almost regardless of cost, the pipes had been so constructed that the whole 

 of the sewer system of the town found a ventilating shaft for itself through the 

 bedrooms of the undergraduates. If, then, typhoid fever is not contagious, how does 

 it originate ? We know it is not given off from marshes as ague is. At one time it 

 was thought to be due to the decomposition of animal substances, and the term 

 " pythogenic fever," signifying " derived from putrefaction," was accordingly 

 proposed for it. But it is now well known that it is not all decomposing animal 

 matter that will produce typhoid it must consist of human excrement. And even 

 this is not the whole truth, for the excrement must be derived from a person 

 suffering from typhoid fever. Fresh typhoid excrement is probably harmless, but 

 even the minutest portion of a decomposing typhoid stool will, if taken into the 

 system rapidly, set up the disease. But how, it may be asked, could even the very 

 smallest portion of a decomposing typhoid stool get into our bodies 1 Who would 

 swallow it ? The idea is utterly abhorrent. Unfortunately it is not very difficult, 

 and when we get typhoid we may be pretty certain, horrible as it may appear, that 

 we have been eating or drinking somebody else's excrement. It is generally 

 introduced into the system through the medium of the water. In the country the 

 privy is often built very close to the well. Both are near the house and near each 

 other. No particular precautions are taken to prevent the contents of the privy 

 from soaking into the ground, and they in course of time drain into the well. 

 Nothing very much, however, comes of it ; the bad water may cause diarrhoea or 

 may make people ill, but it won't give them typhoid. Let, however, a single 

 typhoid stool be emptied into the privy and the mischief is done. The typhoid 

 poison soaks into the earth, gradually develops there, and after a time manages to 

 'get washed into the well. Then typhoid fever breaks out in the house, more typhoid 

 stools are thrown in the privy, more people drink the water and get the disease, 

 and then there is a regular epidemic. Perhaps some wise man comes along, points 

 out the source of the mischief, the well is shut up, and the epidemic is stamped out. 

 But the worst epidemics have been produced when a whole stream has been in- 

 fected with the typhoid poison ; such cases are by no means uncommon. The 

 infection is easily enough effected when the fields from which the stream or 

 aqueduct obtains its supply are manured with excrement, containing typhoid germs. 

 We can't do better than give an example of the way in which an epidemic may be 

 caused. In one very fatal typhoid epidemic in a town in Germany it was noticed 

 that the fever broke out only in houses supplied with water from a certain aqueduct. 

 Other houses close by, which happen to derive their water-supply from another source, 

 entirely escaped. It was found 011 examination that a brook which passed through 

 the court-yard of a lunatic asylum in the neighbourhood, and received its sewerage, 

 opened into the aqueduct. It was further found that in the asylum a nurse had 

 recently died of typhoid fever, and that her clothes had been washed in the wash- 

 house of the asylum, and that some of the soiled linen had even been soaked in the 

 brook itself. This was the cause of all the mischief. We should mention in con- 

 nection with this subject that there is evidence to show that the typhoid poison can 

 be destroyed by boiling the water. 



