The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1876-02-03
For the Citizen.
TYPHOID FEVER.
Is it Contagious? It's Future
Treatment

contagious disease would be abso-
lutely conclusive were it not that
there is proof just as conclusive
that it is not. The contradictory
facts that have for so long puzzled
the profession have apparently been
made to harmonic b. the patience
and research of anumber of German
physicians, whose names it is super
fuous to write, as few would spell
them out, and none but those who
came from "fader land" could, by
any possibility, pronounce them.
These men have conclusively proved
that typhoid fever is not contagious
in the sense that physicians or
nurses in attendance upon the pa
tient are especially liable to con-
tract it. At the same time they
establish by arguments that will
satisfy most minds, the fact an
nounced by Tyndal, that no case of
the disease can occur unless the
poison has been supplied from a
previous case. The theory be
ing that the objections of the pa
tients, which are harmless at first,
contain disease germs capable of
indefinite multiplication if the con-
ditions of moisture or decomposing
matter are present. These germs
are ordinarily taken into the system
through the water drank or the air
breathed, and under physical condi-
tions favorable to their develop
ment, produce the disease.
Instances are multiplied beyond
practical enumeration of individual
cases and wide spread epidemics of
this fever, which have originated
from the filtration through the earth,
to drinking water of elements from
the objections of patients. The
poison can also be carried through
the air. A German brought the
disease with him from distant city
to his native village, which had
long been free from it. The deiec-
tions were thrown upon a pile of
manure. After some weeks, five
men were employed to move it, of
whom four had typhoid fever, and
the other one was disordered. The
objections of these cases were buried
deep in the pile. Nine months af-
terwards two men were employed to
remove that same pile, one of whom
died of the fever. In other words,
no deep burying under the earth OF
casting on its surface can secure
safety. Weeks, months, even years
do not destroy the poison. Nothing
can be relied on but destruction by
fire, or by some of the intense acids
g. In one respect the terrors of ty
phoid fever will be multiplied in,
definitely if American practitioners
adopt the dreadful remedies which,
in German hospitals, have reduced
the mortality resulting from the
disease almost to zero. Should oul
physicians introduce these, tn,
coming patient will have fully
earned the title by the time he ha:
got through. Calomel will be ad
ministered by the scruple in the frs
stages. The subsequent treatmen
will be based on the alleged fact
that in the majority Of cases it il
not the typhoid fever that kills, bu
that the heat caused by the contin
ued fever produces paralysis Of tn
heart, brain and other organs. o
to express it in language which b.
some may be better understood, tn
2 true danger in the disease consist
in the deleterious influence Of
high temperature on the tissues
causing necrobiosis, manifesting it
self anatomically as parenchyma
tous degeneration. To avert thi
polysyllabic catastrophe, the TEN
perature of the patient viii be as
eertained by thermometers with
, precision and regularity which wi
put old Probs to the blush. A doz
en- cold baths day, Of ten minute
each, viii chill the marrow of hi
!. bones. Local distractions of hea
from the head and heart will be al
, fected by ice bags. Forty five grain
of quinine will be administered in
less number of minutes. ShOul
all this fail the unhappy patient
to take enormous doses of veratri;
D a medicine which, as the etymoloe
p ical derivation of the word ind
Gates, would try a rat, and in som
q cases is to stay in a tepid bath fo
o. several weeks continuously. 1t
= doubtful as yet whether the Amer
+ can patient will not, by suicide, d.
+ liver himself from this complicatio
of horrors, and also whether thi
new style of practice, which, till "
n get a better term, may be design;
, ted as the elephant-opothie, wi
q prove as restorative to those who's
= molecules have been mainly draw
i, from whisky and fried meat as
= the lovers of beer and sour-kraut.
X.
TT The Independent voter has real
s an unmerited hard time of it.
d wants to do what is right, and