The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1915-07-16
TYPHOID CARRIERS
The Perversity Of Typhoid Mary

Typhoid fever has fourth place on
American mortality lists, coming aft
Ter only tuberculosis, pneumonia and
cancer. 1t takes among us the place
of the "Asiatic Guest" which the
European peoples have from time i'm
memorial so constantly and so unnec-
essarily entertained Both these dis
eases are "ingestion infections" con-
traced in absolutely no other way
than by swallowing food and drink
(the latter mostly water or milk
contaminated in various disgusting
ways, with either the cholera vibrio
or the typhoid bacillus. Dirty fingers
and the filthy fly are the chief inter-
mediaries. Scientifically speaking,
nothing can be simpler than the pre-
vention of these infections. The APP
fplication of the principles is, how
ever, of great practical difficulty. For
Example, there is the cook, Typhoid
Mary, a carrier of the germ, who, al
though she declared she never her.
self had the disease, has, neverthe-
less, in those migrations from family
to family peculiar to her caste,
through a number of years dessemi-
mated the infection to some score or
more of sufferers. There have indeed
been typhoid carriers who have had
the disease 40 years previously and
have continued through all that time
being menace. It is computed that
one-fourth of the people who have
had typhoid are carriers; that, di-
sease or no disease, one in every one
thousand of us is such carrier. Most
infections are self-limited their
quarantining time is fixed. But YOU
cannot quarantine a typhoid carrier
"a whole life time, any more than you
can frame an indictment against a
whole nation. The great trouble with
Typhoid Mary has been her perver-
sity, exceeding even that which OBJ
tains in her most tempermental of
callings. She has never conceded
herself a menace; she has not obeyed
the sanitary directions given her: she
would not wash and disinfect her
lhands as required; she will not
change her occupation for one in
which she will not endanger the lives
OF others; under an assumed name
she had competed with the wander
ing Jew in scattering destruction in
her path. Typhoid carriers who are
amenable to reason, conscientious,
careful and scrupulously clean. need
not endanger anybody's existence.
The best insurance against typhoid
is after all, to get inoculated against
the disease, as all sensible people are
now vaccinated against smallpox.
Especially is this well to do when
there are typhoid epidemics; and for
commercial travellers, motorists, tour
lists and vacationists who may in the
most subterranean ways contract ty-
phoid ald become typhoid carriers.
And since this is disease largely of
adolescence, youth and early man
hood and womanhood, our young peo-
pie going to boarding schools and
colleges should certainly submit to
this preventive measure before leav-
ing home. 1t is considered that the
protection is effective for at least two
years, and may indeed 'mmunize for
life. When the NEGOTIATIONS are made
in the afternoon untoward sensations
are likely to have disappeared by the
following noon. A series of three sue
cessive inoculations are made week
apart. -Scientific American.
--N