e recovery;
in the early stages almost all of the cases of this kind are
curable, but later this is not often accomplished.

TYPHOID FEVER.

Of all of the infectious diseases prevalent in the United States, typhoid
fever is one of the most common and fatal. As a result of its ravages a
vast amount of invalidism, suffering and financial loss is brought about
each year, and a frightful mortality results. It has for some time been
recognized that typhoid fever is among the most preventable of all
diseases, and if our people would bestir themselves and carry out the
comparatively simple rules that are necessary for its prevention, the
scourge would, in a short time, practically cease to exist among us.

_Character and Course of the Disease._--Typhoid fever, enteric fever, or
abdominal typhus, is an infectious disease believed to be caused by a
specific bacterial germ known as the _Bacillus typhosus_. It develops, as
a rule, quite slowly, the first symptoms being loss of appetite,
headache, and a marked fatigue on slight exertion. These symptoms
gradually grow worse, fever develops, and the patient oftentimes suffers
with chilly sensations; the temperature gradually rises, and in the
course of from a few days to a week reaches a height of 102 degrees, 103
degrees, 104 degrees, or 105 degrees F. In many cases no symptoms exist
that indicate trouble with the bowels, but in the severe forms of the
disease diarrhoea generally comes on during the first week and continues
throughout the course of the disease.

During the second week the symptoms above detailed continue, becoming
often more severe, and there develops great nervousness and delirium.
About this time there are frequently observed over the chest, abdomen and
thighs, minute reddish spots resembling flea-bites; these spots last for
a few days and then pass away and are followed by a fresh crop in other
situations. During this period of the disease inflammation of the
bronchial tubes frequently comes on, and now and then pneumonia develops.
Bleeding from the bowels is an occasional highly characteristic symptom
of the second week. When the disease follows a normal course, the
symptoms during the third week begin gradually to abate; the fever
lessens, and the patient, though much emaciated, gradually returns to a
normal condition.

Unfortunately, however, the disease does not always pursue this
favorable course, for, in quite a proportion of inst