CHAPTER XXV 

 TYPHUS FEVER 



Typhus fever, also known as jail-fever, ship-fever, army-fever, 

 and by a large number of other names, of which about a hundred 

 have been collected by Murchison,* has long been known,_but was 

 probably not recognized as a definite disease before 1760, when 

 Gaultier de Sauvage endeavored to give it individuahty, or 1769 

 when Cullum of Edinburgh defined it. Its eventual separation 

 from typhoid fever, with which it continued to be confused, was 

 the result of the studies of Gerhard "On the Typhus Fever which 

 occurred in Philadelphia in the Spring and Summer of 1836, etc."t 

 The Germans still speak of typhus abdominalis , meaning typhoid 

 or enteric fever, and typhus exanthematicus, meaning the typhus 

 fever of the present day. The Spanish and Mexicans call it 

 tabardillo. 



The disorder is largely a disease of poverty, filth and crowding, and 

 is of frequent occurrence both in sporadic and epidemic form where 

 such conditions occur permanently or temporarily. Its most 

 common epidemic occurrence is therefore among the slums, in jails, 

 in ships, in asylums, in hospitals and in armies. With the improved 

 hygienic conditions of the present time its occurrence in consider- 

 able epidemics is much diminished, and it is not to be expected in 

 sanitary dwellings, among cleanly people or in well-regulated 

 institutions. 



It is undoubtedly transmissible and therefore infectious, but 

 it early became clear that the infection was not air-borne and did 

 not readily pass from individual to individual. Further, it seems 

 clear that the survival of an attack confers immunity against future 

 infection. 



In 1876 MoczutkowskiJ inoculated himself with the blood of a 

 patient suffering from typhus fever, and developed the disease 

 eighteen days later. In 1907 Otero§ endeavored to induce the dis- 

 ease in human beings by inoculation. In one out of four attempts . 

 he was successful. 



Experiments with a not infrequently fatal malady made upon 

 human beings being immoral and inexpedient, it became necessary 

 to find some animal susceptible to the disease, with which further 

 experiments could be prosecuted. 



* "A Treatise on the Continued Fevers of Great Britain," 3d edition, 1884, p. 

 161. 

 t Amer. Jour, of the Med. Sciences, 1836, xrx, p. 283; 1837, xx, p. 289. 

 t "Allgemeine Med. Central Zeitung," 1900, Lxvm, 1055. 

 § "Mem. pres. a I' Acad, de Med. de Mex.," 1907. 



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