The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1935-06-14

6,OOO deaths from typhoid. Now, with
q population of over three million,
Chicago has an average death rate
from typhoid Of about eighteen a year.
The rural section of the state, how
ever, has much greater proportion
of deaths. In 1880 there were 154
deaths from typhoid fever in Illinois.
The number of cases has dropped
proportionately, too.
Typhoid, originally city disease, has
now become country disease. This is
because sanitation has been developed
in the cities and larger towns, while in
the country districts the drinking water
Is too often contaminated with sewage.
In the country districts people drink
raw milk; in the cities pasteurization
is required. Health officers hope that
some day they will be able to stamp
out typhoid fever completely. But they
won't be able to do 1t so long as sew
age can seep into drinking water, and
so long as there are human typhoid
carriers about.
Typhoid is a filth disease. It was
suspected of being that for some time,
but 1t was not until the germ causing
the disease was discovered by Pro-
fessor Eberth in Germany in 1880 that
we were able to understand why ty-
phoid fever is associated with filth.
Typhoid fever is infectious; each new
case is caused by swallowing typhoid
germs, and the germs are in the feces
and sometimes the urine excreted by
person who has typhoid. Then when
this excreted material gets into the
drinking water of humans and is used
for washing raw vegetables or fruits,
or it gets directly on the hands of per-
sons handling milk or food, then per-
ter, milk or foodstuff, is liable to con-
tract the disease.
There are more cases of typhoid
fever in the late summer and early
fall than at any other time of the
year. This is for two reasons; first,
because typhoid germs grow best in
warm weather; and, second, because
man is more susceptible to typhoid
fever during this season of the year
than in the cold months. In the sum-
mer people go on vacations. They
drink bad water or eat contaminated
food, perhaps. and develop diarrhea.
Or they over-exercise or get sun-blis-
tered, and thus upset the whole chem
ical and metabolic processes of the
body. Diarrhea can develop from this,
too.
Under normal conditions the stom-
ach and intestines can destroy ordi-
nary doses of bacteria swallowed with
the food, for healthy intestinal tract
has an enormous power of self-disin-
lection. But when person has diar-
rhea or other digestive disturbance,
this power of destroying bacteria is
lost, and 1t is easy to become infected.
Typhoid carriers are either persons
who have such mild cases of typhoid
fever that no one suspects them of hav-
ing typhoid, or else persons. who have
had typhoid fever and apparently re-
covered, but were left with small ul-
cerated areas in the gall bladder and
adjacent regions. The germs grow in
these diseased parts and are passed
into the digestive tract and on down
to the feces. These persons, though
innocent of wrongdoing, are a menace
to health wherever they are, for they
are walking reservoirs of typhoid
ehnrYld h0 o1InxuAd
to handle milk or foods of any kind.
Most state departments of public
health require that all food handlers
and persons working in connection
with diaries be examined periodically
to determine whether they are carriers
of typhoid germs.
1t is comparatively simple to protect
oneself against known carriers of ty-
phoid germs, but it is practically i'm
possible to protect oneself against the
unknown carriers.
In the research laboratories of the
University of Illinois College of Medi-
cine, DIR. Lars Gulbrandsen recently
discovered a method by which X-ray
treatments could be applied over the
liver and gall bladder of typhoid car
riers and cure these people of the car
rier state. These X-ray treatments are
not severe but are in fact very light
doses of X-ray given once every two
weeks and repeated five or six times.
The patients are not sick. They do
not go to bed and the typhoid bacteria
gradually disappear from the feces.