gust to November.

It has been previously indicated to what extent the study of the
hygienic conditions of life will assist in the discovery of the real
causes of so-called contagious disease. One instance may show the
enormous influence of dietetic movements on the outbreak of great
epidemics.

It is reported in the "Journal of the Sanitary Institute," London, that
the English Seaside Resort Brighton, in the period from July, 1893, to
August, 1896, 238 cases of abdominal typhus were observed,--about
equally divided for the different years. In 56 cases the typhus was
caused by the eating of oysters (36 cases) or clams (20 cases). There
was evidence that the water from which these oysters and clams were
taken was badly polluted by the excrement of several thousand people,
brought through sewers to the place were the shell-fish had been
gathered. It was very characteristic in a number of cases that only one
of a number of persons, who were otherwise living under equal
conditions, fell ill with typhus, a short while after having eaten some
of the shell-fish. No other points essential to the spreading of this
contagious disease could be discovered. Brighton is healthily situated
and built; hygienic conditions in general are favourable; much attention
is paid particularly to keeping the soil clean, removing all faeces and
providing good drinking water. Contamination through milk in all of the
56 cases, according to most careful investigations, was out of the
question. They occurred in entirely different streets in various
precincts of the town; 45 of the patients lived on 43 different streets.
Besides the people attacked by typhus, many other persons fell ill from
lighter disease of the intestines, after having eaten of these
crustaceous bivalves, the symptoms being diarrhoea and pains in the
stomach. Measures were taken to remove the noxious causes as soon as the
source of infection was discovered.

The same conditions were some time ago noticed in Berlin. Out of 14
people invited to a dinner, nine fell ill--5 of them very
seriously--under symptoms of typhus, after having eaten oysters from
Heligoland. Part of the personnel of the kitchen and some of the
servants were taken ill with the same critical symptoms.

_B. Essentials._

Abdominal typhus is a general illness of the whole body, and
consequently all organs of the body are more or less altered in a morbid
way while the disease lasts. The main change occurs in t