416 [Assembly 



doubtedly have spread farther, but the inl abitants took the alarm, 

 and the house for a time was deserted. At my solicitation the Al- 

 derman of the ward visited the building, the number of pigs about 

 the establishment was reduced to that allowed by law, and chloride 

 of lime, white-washing, &c. liberally, and assiduously employed. 



I had three cases of Typhus in a back cellar, in the rear, I think, 

 of 16 Marion-street, though it may have been 12 or 14. The cellar 

 was ten or twelve feet under ground, the first floor of the house be- 

 ing a little elevated above the level of the yard, and dimly lighted 

 (not ventilated) by one small window. It either had no communi- 

 cation whatever with the front cellar, or the communication was 

 completely blocked up. A child was in the first place seized by the 

 disease, then its mother, then a lodger who lived with them. They 

 all recovered, but how, it would be hard to tell. No one appeared 

 to come near them, save the visitor from the almshouse, and my- 

 self. 



That typhus fever, generated in the first place under particular cir- 

 cumstances, may become highly contagious, is now, I believe, the 

 general opinion of the best informed of the profession. A very stri- 

 king illustration of this occurred in my practice. A young Irish wo- 

 man who had come to this country with her husband and child, was 

 taken wilh typhus at the house of her father, just after she had been 

 landed from an emigrant ship. The family, at that time, resided in 

 Madison-street. She had a very severe attack, and came near dying. 

 Next, her father, who had been many years in this country, was sei- 

 zed. Then the child. The family now removed from Madison-street 

 to Elizabeth-street. The greatest care was taken to preserve proper 

 ventilation, cleanliness, &c. In despite of this, the disease succes- 

 sively attacked two younger brothers, the mother, two grown sisters, 

 and an elder brother. I was in attendance in the family from Christ- 

 mas, at which time I found the young woman who was first attack- 

 ed, almost in articulo mortis, till May, when the disease, after having 

 successively visited every member of the family, finally disappeared. 



Yours, sincerely, 



B. W. McCREADY. 



Among the diseases most frequently resulting from an imperfec- 

 tion in the means of life, is scrofula, in its Protean forms. Dr. 

 Watson, of London, the latest authority in the Practice of Medicine, 

 in speaking of the general causes of this disease, enumerates as the 

 most prominent, " Insufficient nutriment, exposure to wet and cold, 



