OUTBREAK OF TYPHOID FEVER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2440, 1 March 1888, Page 2

OUTBREAK OF TYPHOID FEVER.

(BY TBI.KOKAPH. —OWN' IiOKHKSI'OSDKNT.) Auckland, Wednesday. CoNsriiEUAlsi.K alarm lias been caused by tlie outbreak <if typhoid at Ronsonby. The | Bell lias interviewed the doctors on the subject, and they express varied opinions. Dr. liond attributes it to defective drainage contaminating water supplies, and holds that olfensive smells never cause typhoid. Dr. I'hilson agrees with the latter opinion, but attributes the disease principally to summer heat. He says it is a tiling that occurs all over the islands at tnis time oE the year, and no one knows to what it is duo. He remembers this fever for a certainty when there were not 2000 people in t.he whole district, so it is not owing to increase of population or anything of that sort. The only tiling lie ever noticed in the hospital was that some of the worst cases came from the best drained districts. It seemed to him to be what is called an epidemic disease, and does not know that there is any way to prevent it. Cleanliness and pure water are good things for the health, of course; the disease is not infectious, and it is ridiculous to suppose that it spreads from one to another. During the whole time he was in the hospital not one case spread to the ordinary patients, and he certainly thinks if one drinks contaminated water ho will be made ill, but still many have taken impure water into their systems and yet not taken fevet. Take the case of the British army in the Soudan, the blacks poisoned all the wells and the soldiers were obliged to drink water or go without it, yet we have not he-ird of anything terrible ensuing. He never could satisfy himself what it was due to. He lias been amongst the fever for years, and has never taken it, and lias never known it to spread from one to another. Dr. Knight says it is caused by defective drainage and offensivo smells.