THE SOURCE OF TYPHOID FEVER AND ITS REMEDY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 666, 22 January 1875, Page 3

THE SOURCE OF TYPHOID FEVER AND ITS REMEDY.

—o — As the sanitary state of the various towns is at present engaging the serious attention of the respective Corporations ; and seeing, by the Daily Times, that a case of typhus fever has occurred at Port Chalmers, and as typoid fever has again re-appeared at Cromwell, the following article from a late issue of the Chicago Times may not be without interest

The existence of typhoid fever is very common, especially in civilised communities. Its frequently fatal termination and its long and distressing developments, even in case of recovery, constitute it a disease which is but a little less dreaded than its kindred scourges, cholera and small-pox. In view of its character, investigations as to its origin are of universal interest. It is not a disease which is limited to any particular class, as is the case with some others. It is a visitant of the crowded tenement-house, and of the palace. It frequents both ‘country, town, and city; and makes its appearance indifferently in the isolated farm-house, and upon the avenues of densely populated centres. And yet one would scarcely believe that this dreadful complaint is simply and solely the production of uncleanliness ; that it has no higher origin than dirt ; that it is in no way a Providential dispensation further than being an attempt on the part of Providence—if Providence have a hand in the matter at all—to warn men and women that they must breathe pure air, drink pure water, and keep themselves free from the contamination ot filth. In the Public Health, an English publication, it is positively asserted as the conclusion of long and exhaustive investigations that typhoid fever is “ d'rectly and positively preventable,” and this prevention is a matter of utmost simplicity. “Filth,” says the same authority, “polluting air, or water, or both, is the sole, simple, and removable cause ” of typhoid fever, and the removal of “ filth in such a way that neither air or water shall be polluted thereby means the extinction of typhoid fever.” The discovery of the cause and cure of this scourge removes the duty of preventing the spread or even the existence of this disease from the domain of mysticism and places it in the hands of sanitary authorities in general, and in keeping of every individual in particular. The discovery amounts to this ; Exterminate filth, and we exterminate typhoid fever. For popular guidance there are three or four points which may be elaborated. They are

1. Drinking water must be absolutely free from the drainage of night-soil and other impurities.

2. The excrementory discharges of patients suffering from typhoid fever will communicate the disease, and hence they must be at once disinfected.

3. The air from sewers and water-closets must not be permitted to escape so as to be breathed, for it is a fruitful source of the origin and for the spread of the disease.

These three points thoroughly attended to by every family will reduce the existence of typhoid fever to the minimum. The action of the individual should be supplemented, in the case of towns, by measures which will cleanse the gutters, secure per. feet sewerage, and prevent the atmosphere from being polluted by the admission into it of noxious vapors. In the case of farm houses, the great cause of typhoid fever is found in the pollution of the air and the drinking water by emanations and drainage from the barn-yard. In fine, typhoid fever like cholera and small-pox, is simply the indignant and forcible protest of nature against uncleanliness. Let everyone breathe perfectly pure air, drink perfectly purewater—lot people completely disassociate themselves from filth—and typhoid fever will become a disease of the past.