The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin.

  • Charles V. Chapin
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sources and modes of infection / by Charles V. Chapin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    There is little doubt that the percentage of carriers both convalescent and chronic is considerably larger than is indicated by the above figures. Owing to the very marked intermittency with which bacilli are excreted in the feces of many carriers, an intermittency which is also shown by the urinary carriers, though to a lesser extent, it is certain that more extended examination of the excreta would dis- cover many more carriers. It must be remembered that most studies of this subject have been based on not more than two or three examinations. Carriers among Contacts. — Persons brought into inti- mate relation with the sick may become infected without exhibiting any symptoms whatever. Drigalski and Con- radi1 found the infection in 4 well persons in contact with typhoid cases, Liefmann and Nieter 2 found 7 carriers out of 252 persons examined in an insane asylum, some of whom it was believed were carriers and the causes of the out- break in the institution, but some of them, however, were true contacts. Scheller 3 examined 40 persons who drank milk which had been handled by a typhoid carrier. Of these 5 were sick, and 13 others, who had no symptoms, were yet found to be excreting typhoid bacilli in either feces or urine or both. All of them became free from germs within a few weeks. Ledingham states that at the St. Brieuc garrison in 1909, Billet and others found 1 carrier among 53 men who lived in rooms where the cases had been most numerous. Typhoid Bacilli in Persons Never Sick. — Not only are persons who have had typhoid fever found to be carriers of the germs, but persons who have never had the disease, and who give no history of contact, may be infected. 1 Drigalski and Conradi, Ztschr. f. Hyg. u. Infectionskrankh., Leipz., 1902, XXXIX, 283. J Liefmann and Nieter, Munchen med. Wchnschr., 1906, LIU, 2097. > Scheller, Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. [etc.], I Abt. Orig., Jena, 1908, LXVI, 385.