INFECTION FROM TVPHOII^ " rwiJRIElJS " 281 



To continue the account of carrier cases : 



"Klinger found, among 1700 persons, twenty-three typhoid 

 carriers, ranging in age from eightt-en months to sixty years, 

 eleven of whom had no typhoid history. Of 842 convalescents 

 from the disease, sixty-three, or thirteen and one-tenth per cent., 

 were found to be excreting the bacilli, and eight were still <Ieing 

 so six w^eeks after recovery. 



"Kayser, tracing outbreaks to their sources, found a boy of 

 twelve years, a member of a milkman's family, to be a chronic 

 carrier and the probable source of infection in a number of cases. 

 Another outbreak in which seventeen persons were seized (two 

 deaths) w^as traced to a woman who had no typhoid history but 

 was excreting the specific bacilli. She was employed in the driry 

 from which the persons seized had obtained their milk. ( )f 200 

 cases of typhoid fevei- investigated, 60 were traced to infected 

 milk. Among the sixty victims were thirty maids and kitchen 

 girls, twelve bakers and forty-four persons engaged more or less in 

 kitchen work. In all, twenty-eight cases were traced directly to 

 apparently healthy typhoid carriers." 



The final case recorded is probably that of the now celebrated 

 " Typhoid Mary." Six years previous to the institution of the 

 encpiir}' this woman appeared to have had a mild attack of typhoid 

 fever. " Since that time there have been undoubtedly twenty- 

 eight cases of typhoid fever in the families in which she worked. 

 The number of cases in a family within a few weeks of her advent 

 varied from one or two up to six out of seven members. The 

 evidence seemed so strong that she was at once removed to 

 Reception Hospital by force. Examinations of her faeces and urine 

 were made and the typhoid bacilli found in her faeces confirmed 

 positively our suspicions (says the writer of the account) with 

 regard to the possibility of her conveying typhoid fever." 



The significance of the occurrence of so large a number of 

 chronic carriers as these selected observations indicate is very 

 great, especially when considered in relation to the question of the 

 possibility of flies having access to infected matter under what one 

 might call normal conditions. Flies would have as equal access 

 to the infected faeces of these unrecognised " carriers " as to the 

 faeces of a healthy person. Further investigations are certain to 



