CHAPTER XI 



TYPHUS FEVER 

 HISTORY 



There are medical historians who find evidence of the existence of 

 typhus fever among the ancient Hebrews and their contemporaries, 

 but this is a matter of conjecture. While this disease has long been 

 known as morbus pauperum, associated with want and famine, we 

 must not infer that it is the only fever which develops and thrives 

 among the needy and in times of scarcity of food and other privations. 

 Poverty and overcrowding favor the development and distribution of 

 many infections. Some of the cases reported by Hippocrates in his 

 book on epidemics are certainly suggestive of typhus. 



The following is the report of a case, now believed to have been 

 typhus, made by Hippocrates, as translated by Adams : 



In Thasus the wife of Dealces, who was lodged on the plain, from sorrow 

 was seized with an acute fever, attended with chills. From first to last she 

 wrapped herself up in her bedclothes; still silent, she fumbled, picked, bored 

 and gathered hairs (from the covers); tears and again laughter; no sleep; 

 bowels irritable, but passed nothing; when directed, drank a little; urine thin 

 and scanty ; to the touch of the hand the fever was slight ; coldness of extremi- 

 ties'. On the ninth (day) talked much incoherently, and again became com- 

 posed and silent. On the fourteenth, breathing rare, large, at intervals; and 

 again hurried respiration. On the sixteenth, looseness of the bowels from a 

 stimulating clyster ; afterwards she passed her drink, nor could retain .anything, 

 for she was completely insensible; skin parched and tense. On the twentieth 

 much talk and again became composed; loss of speech; respiration hurried. 

 On the twenty-first she died. Her respiration throughout was rare and large ; 

 she was totally insensible; always wrapped up in her bedclothes; either much 

 talk or complete silence throughout. Phrenitis. 



The great Athenian pestilence so well described by Thucydides was 

 either typhus or the pneumonic form of the plague. Livy and Tacitus 

 tell of many epidemics in the classical period of Rome. Some of these 

 undoubtedly were epidemics of the plague, while the descriptions of 

 others suggest typhus. The dark ages were so overshadowed by dis- 



