and, if
eaten raw, sometimes communicate typhoid fever. Dust is an occasional
medium of communication of the germ. It is probable, however, that the
germ always enters the body by being swallowed with food or drink, and
does not enter through the lungs. There is little doubt on this point.
Ice may harbor the germ for many months, for freezing does not kill
it, and epidemics have been traced to this source. Clothing, wood,
utensils, door handles, etc., which have been contaminated by contact
with discharges from patients, may also prove mediums of communication
of the typhoid germ to healthy individuals. Typhoid germs escape from
patients sick with the disease chiefly in the bowel discharges and
urine, sometimes in the sweat, saliva, and vomited matter.

Sewer gas and emanations from sewage and filth will not communicate
typhoid fever directly, but the latter afford nutriment for the growth
of the germ, and after becoming infected, may eventually come in
contact with drinking water or food, and so prove dangerous. Improper
care of discharges of excrement and urine--with the assistance of
flies--are responsible for the enormous typhoid epidemics in military
camps, so that in the late Spanish-American War one-fifth of all our
soldiers in camp contracted the disease. In the upper layers of the
soil typhoid germs may live for six months through frosts and thaws.
The disease is preventable, and will probably be stamped out in time.
In some of the most thickly populated cities in the world, as in
Vienna, its occurrence is most infrequent, owing to intelligent
sanitary control and pure water supply, while in the most salubrious
country districts its inroads are the most serious and fatal through
ignorance and carelessness.

=Development.=--From eight to twenty-three days elapse from the time
of entrance of typhoid germs into the body before the patient is taken
sick. One attack usually protects one against another, but two or
three attacks are not unheard of in the same person.

=Symptoms.=--Typhoid fever is subject to infinite variations, and it
will here be possible only to outline what may be called a typical
case. In a work of this kind the preliminary symptoms are of most
importance in warning one of the probability of an attack, so that the
prospective patient can govern himself accordingly, as in no other
disease is rest in bed of more value. Patients who persist in walking
about with typhoid fever for the first week