106 TYPHUS FEVER 



Doty says: "Out of 439 cases of typhus fever which occurred in 

 New York during 1892-1893, 434 were removed from the poorer 

 tenement and lodging houses, principally the latter." 



In the records of the civil war 1,723 cases with 572 deaths are 

 reported under this name, but the diagnosis of many of these were 

 questioned by the best medical officers, such as Woodward and Clymer. 

 No cases were reported by Confederate officers. It is certain that 

 typhus did not play any marked part in the mortality of that war. 



THE TRANSMISSION OF TYPHUS 



In 1909 Nicolle, stationed in Algiers, made two notable discoveries 

 concerning the transmission of typhus fever. In the first place, he 

 induced the disease in the chimpanzee by injecting the blood of patients 

 and in like manner he transferred the disease from the chimpanzee 

 to the macacus monkey. He was not able to transfer the disease in 

 this way directly from man to monkey, but could do so indirectly 

 through the chimpanzee. This suggests that the virus is increased in 

 intensity by passage through the chimpanzee. In the second place, 

 Nicolle succeeded in transmitting typhus from monkey to monkey 

 by the bite of the body louse. Typical eruptions were secured in the 

 chimpanzee constantly, but not uniformly in the monkey. 



The fact that typhus is transferable by the bite of the body louse 

 has been confirmed by Anderson and Goldberger, Ricketts and others. 

 This renders it desirable for us to know as much as possible con- 

 cerning the life history of this parasite. Shipley of Cambridge, Eng- 

 land, has recently made studies along this line and I follow him 

 principally in the following statements : The body louse ( Pediculis 

 vestimenti) is somewhat larger than the head louse and carries longer 

 antennae. The male is about 3 mm. long and 1 mm. broad. The female 

 is about one-tenth larger. Its color is said to vary with that of the 

 people on whom it feeds, black, brown, and with different shades of 

 grayish white. It does not move about over the surface but is always 

 attached to the inner side of the underclothing. Even in feeding, it 

 remains attached by at least one of its six legs to the clothing. When 

 a lousy person is stripped, no lice can be found on him, but the inner 

 side of the underclothing may be alive with them. When grown for 

 the purpose of study, they must be permitted to attach themselves to 



