Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1903-12-02
TYPHOID FEVER
Professor R.S.McCullOch Writes
Article In Gazette of 1872

+ The GAZETTE of April Goth, 1872
y and was from the pen Of Professor
u, X. 5. McCulloch, at that tim,
=. professor at Washington College
y To every farmer ] wish to saw
let me urge upon you to make it O
duty to search for and clean away
o filth wherever it may exist upon
your farm. Let nothing ever
, suspicious remain. Gather it all ;
plough it in; it is all valuable
r manure. Some years ago, upon
4 the farm of one of my deceased
friends, a malignant fever broke
1 out, first in the overseer's family,
whose wife died with it, then it
spread among the work people
: and into the family Of my friend.
The region all around was remark
ably healthy, no swamps, no
stagnant mill-ponds. The physi-
clan insisted there must be filth
somewhere upon the farm, but pig
pens COW yards, stables and privies,
all were unusually clean, and had
been carefully purified with lime.
Nevertheless, he insisted there
must be filth thus causing the
disease and death, and proposed a
new search. Going to the over
seer's house, where the disease
first appeared, one of first objects
that caught the doctors eye was
the accumulated mass of chips
and bark of the woodpile. Point
ing to it he asked that it be opened
with g. pick, which was done. At
once there arose from it stencil
revealing the hidden source of all
the trouble. Upon that "woodpile"
it had been the practice to pour
Stops, producing mass of putrid-
lty, with death looking in its
train.
Twenty-Five boys at "a boarding
school in London were seized with
alarming symptoms of violent ir-
rltatlon in the stomach and bowels.
spasms Of the muscles of the arm
and excessive prostration of
strength. At first it was suspected
that the boys had been poisoned.
but analysis did not lead to the
discovery Of any noxious substance.
Two days before the first child was
seized, foul cess-pool had been
opened and the materials ditfused {
over Il garden adjoining the
chlldren's playing-ground. This !
was the cause, according to the \
opinion expressed by six medical C
L
In Paris thee young and vigor- G
ous men died successfully in the
same lodging room and under S
similar symptoms. The cause il
vas found to have been the pipes v
If the privy passed down one e
lngle of the room by the head of v
he bed, and was damp from in h
iltratiOn. o.
Professor McCulloch quotes at
ength an article from Halls Jour :,
al of Health for March of 1872, g,
mich treats of typhoid fever. 6.
he article says it is accurate n
nough for all practical purposes =
Or the people to say that typhoid i,
an exaggerated form of typhus; II
ut that both should be called by
he same name of Excremental -
ever, for then the common peo- ~
lie would at once know the nature III
the disease, would at once seek ~
ut its cause, remove it, and thus ~
abate the malady, not ..
lily in the neighborhood where W.
'evalent. Typhoid fever is caused u. III
breathing into the lungs, vi
'allowing into the stomach, hu- i''
an excrement; that is, what has
en thrown from the body, or out rec
the body: from the body IN to
ides the perspiration, odors, lie
mes, coming from the skin and vii
ngs: out of the body means the abl
inc, and more particularly that to
lich passes in solid form from has
e bowels. The things which qul
? breathed into the lungs and mil
into the stomach find {
cir way into the blood, poison it, Con
Ike it thicken, arrest its flow, gen
use it to clog up in the small and
'od-vessels, derange circulation, par
Il finally arrest the whole Lei
chinery of the body, and the He
n is dead. Bea
rhe article then cites the illness Wa
the Prince Of Wales from tacl
,hoid fever. The Prince lived y
mt IA hundred and twenty miles stir
m London, in retired part of late
country, around the hills, not den
from the sea coast. In coming and
his house. day after day, from oroi
tsandhuntingeXcursions,h he had chm
pass some yards where manure dist
prepared from human otfal. pros
was generally attended by two Ran
err persons, both of whom died d
ing the illness of the Prince. Nv
err Investigations showed the . .ne
zee W: 5 subjected to breathing w.. .,o'
atmosphere of privy drains. s"'
tide closing the mouths of ~
e drains first and then running 's' .s
nto them, drove the gases into u y. :.
houses in some cases with , ,,
ence sufficient to blow out a m m"J'
lie. The house of the Prince Di'''
one Of them.
he National Hotel disease was The
cited. Very many of the in. the G
IS were taken suddenly i'll in oVerd