AND MEDICAL SCIENCE 321 



thus produced have been even more marked than when similar 

 animals have been intoxicated with the products of the more 

 specialised Bacillus of typhoid fever — ^though in the latter case 

 death was produced with more pronounced general symptoms, 

 and also more rapidly than in the former case. 



While one mode of origin of the disease may be brought about 

 in the manner indicated by Rodet and Roux (that is, in a manner 

 only too likely to be ascribed to a spread of the disease by water- 

 borne contagia), it is well known that another quite different 

 mode of origin of the disease was advocated by Murchison in 

 his celebrated work on "Continued Fevers."' He believed that 

 the toxic cause of typhoid fever might originate in pent-up decom- 

 posing faecal matter, and that in these cases the mode of entry 

 of the poison into the system was through the air rather than 

 by means of fluids taken into the alimentary canal. 



Others, again, hold views closely related to this. Instead of 

 supposing that the general health is lowered and the system 

 poisoned by breathing the emanations from choked drains and 

 cess-pits (causes to which isolated or small groups of cases of 

 typhoid fever often seem traceable), they lay stress upon wide- 

 spread pollutions of the soil beneath houses, and upon variations 

 in the height of ground water of such a kind as to facilitate the 

 entry of emanations from such soil into houses, and the produc- 

 tion thereby of slowly poisonous effects upon many persons 

 simultaneously. They would thus account for the endemic and 

 epidemic visitations of typhoid fever in particular towns, and for 

 their special autumnal prevalence. Speaking on this latter subject 

 in a lecture on " Some Points in the Etiology of Typhoid Fever," 

 Sir Charles Cameron,' the medical officer of health of Dublin, 

 said : " Localised outbreaks of typhoid fever can frequently be 

 directly traced to the use of a particular supply of polluted water 

 or milk, but the widespread epidemics of this disease, and even 

 its persistent occurrence in so many towns, must be due to some 

 other cause or causes. For example, in Dublin it was epidemic in 

 1891-92, and in 1889 it appeared in all parts of the city and 

 adjacent districts." These epidemics, Sir Charles Cameron feels 

 assured, could not be traced to contamination of the water-supply, 

 for in his view " there are few cities in the world with such good 

 water as Dublin fortunately possesses." On the other hand, there 



' " The Continued Fevers of Great Britain," 1862, pp. 437-456. 

 = "The Lancet," June 11, 1892, p. 1285. 



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