The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1871-12-02 00:00:00

TYPHOID FEVER EXPLAINED.

The Daily Telegraph, In noticing the lamentable illness of
the Privet, of Wales, remarks

Typhoid or enteric fever—for this disease has more
than one designation—ranks among the zymotic
diseases, and as such is eminently preventable. The
more clearly to designate its origin Sr. Murchison has
propotted to call it pythogenic fever, which indicates
the fact, now well established, that it is a malady in-
duced by a poison bred from deconnsssing animal
matter. if this title the Registrar-General has more
than once, in his annual reports, expressed his approval,
on the ground that it keeps always before the mind the
origin and characteristic mode of diffusion of the disease.
Typhoid fever is propagated chiefly by the emana-
tions front bad drains, or by pollution of the drinking
water. Its distinctive characters have only been
dearly defined within the last twenty or thirty years;
having at an earlier date been confounded with typhus
and other forms of continued fever. It never prevails
FIA a great epidemic, like typhus, nor is it contagious
in the same sense that typhus is contagious ; but its
prevalence is local, and arises front the uniform action
aaf the same original causes. It is most apt to occur
in circumscribed epidemics at the end of notation,
or after a long continuance of warm weather. In
the great majority of such outbreaks it has been
possible to point out, as a cause, some serious
defect in the drainage far in the purity of the
water, But with our present system of drainage
awl peculiarities of home-building the most careful
forethought has not always sufficed to prevent the
generation of the pesos,. Although, therefore,
typh,,id fever may emphatically be denominated
the fever of sanitary neOect, and although most
outbreaks may be traced to neglect- often cul-
pable neglect —of the authorities or of individual
householders, such culpability tar such carelessness
must trot be assumed to exist in every instance.
Very extraordinary accidents and unlookol-for mis-
chances have, before now, led to sharp out-
breaks of coterie fever. Tlms Dr. Murchison,
in his standard work on the subject, relates in-
stances in which sudden explosions 44 typhoid fever,
in apparently well-built anal well-drained houses,
have appeared at the outset no inexplicable as to give
rise to auspicious of accidental or es iminal poisoning.
In these instances, the disease has been clearly traced
to palpable contamination of air or water with sewer
poison. It must by no means be inferred that the
illness of the Prince id Wales has been contracted
at Sandringham. There is, indeed, evidence which
makes it unlikely that it WWI so. The disease is
not one which immediately reveals itself. It has
a vareti and sometimes a protracted period of
incubation. Sometimes symptoms characteristic of
the fever will declare themselves within a day
tar twat of exposure to the poison, and at other times
not until after an interval of two or even three
weeks. During this raerittal tie patient may seem
to enjoy his atonal health ; and even when the disease
shades itself, its onset is so insidious that it is t4ten
diflieadt, in taking a retiospective view f the
symptoms. to fix precisely the date of the commence-
ment of the malady. It frequently begins with symp-
toms 1.1. different in ;my essential reveal from those
of an ordinary febrile cold. It has happened So
with his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Fortunately, however, in his case the earliest symp-
toms whirls appeared were carefully watched. The
Prince was seen front day to day during the first days
of his preliminary symptoms by Mr. Oscar Clayton,
his surgeon-in-onlinars', was carefully dieted, anal
took necessary preliminary precautions as to his
health which are likely now to alleviate the course of
the disease.

The Time., in speaking of the Prince's illness, also re-
marks:—

"The Illness of his Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales is understood to date from his recent visit to
Lord Londesborough. Typhoid fever Li known to be
a zymotic fever arising usually from a poison gene-
rated by sewage. The more severe effects of this
poison are to produce the fever; its minor effects
are to lII.IIICe less FetiOllN forms of constitutional dis-
turbance. Several of the members .1 the distin-
guished party assembled at Lord Lonnesborough's
house, which is in the neighbourhood of Scarborough,
have suffered more or less severely from such symp-
toms. Lord Chesterfield, we regret to learn, has since
his return home been attacked with typhoid fever in
a very severe form. The symptoms declared them-
selves somewhat later than was the case with his
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, but the attack is
apprently snore severe. Turning to the bulletins
which have been received from Sandringham, we are
reluctantly obliged to admit that, while atfirding the
fullest scope for well-finmileil expectations of a
happy termination, they are such as still to give
grounds for anxiety. The aitack from the first
was sharp, and we know that when a Royal bulletin
announces in guarded terms that the fever is
. . . . . .

...
strong awl the nights are unquiet, this implies that
there is more or less of delirium, and that the
affection in acute. It is understood that it has
been oo with his Royal Highness. On the other
hand, there are good grounds for the most consolatory
reflections and the most encouraging anticipatians in
the fact that the fever has now reached the sixteenth
day, without any aaf those complications which con-
stitute the real danger I.f typhoid, far more than the
uncomplicated disease itself, even in its strongly de-
veloped type. Again, although youth is not somarked
an advantage for the patiebt in this disorder as in
its cognate affection, typhus, yet it counts for
something, anal as far as its influence goes inclines
the balance always toward,sa haplay, speedy, anal unim-
peded recovery. It is important to remember that
this fever belongs to the class which have statedperksls
of incubation, varying very considerably it is true,
and a fixed course of days through which they
run. In a very mild case a satisfactory termination
might be expected in twenty•one days ; a well-
marked attack such as this cannot be expected
to terminate favourably before the twenty-fourth
or twenty-eighth day, or it may be a little later. Thus,
then, bulletins of more or less grave or doubtful cha-
racter may be expected, from the nature of the malady,
for perhaps ten days or a fottnight longer, and it is
well to know this beforehand, inasmuch as it will
tend to prevent undue anxiety :au.l alarm.