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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    contacts. Extensive investigation ought to be made in dif- ferent parts of the world and among different classes of people. Duration of Infection. — The bacilli may be found in the urine and feces of carriers, often in enormous numbers, for years. Not so very many cases have been followed bacte- riologically for a great length of time, though in one in- stance the positive examinations lasted four and one-half years. Tsuzuki followed several cases over a year. Mayer, before referred to, reports the following duration of infec- tivity: for 6 months, 56; 6 months to 1 year, 38; 1 year to 2 years, 16; 2 years to 4 years, 17. There is, however, epidemiological evidence for assuming a much longer continuance of the infection. Dean 1 reports the case of a medical man who had had typhoid fever twenty-nine years before, and had since then frequent attacks of biliary colic. Typhoid bacilli were recovered from his feces. It was believed that no one had contracted the disease from him, but he had always been very careful in his personal habits. Huggenberg2 noted thirteen cases in a household extending over a period of thirty-two years. One woman who had the disease in 1877 was shown to be a carrier in 1908. Scheller 3 reported thirty-two cases ex- tending over a period of fourteen years, all probably due to a carrier who had been sick seventeen years before. Gregg 4 found a woman whose blood gave a positive Widal reaction, and in whose feces bacilli were found, and who had had typhoid fever fifty-two years before. She had presumably infected seven persons. JundelPs case reported above was infectious perhaps for fifty-four years. Chal- mers' case 5 had had the disease sixteen years before. 1 Dean, Brit. M. J., Lond., 1908, I, 562. 2 Huggenberg, Cor.-Bl. f. Schweiz. Aerzte., 1908, XXXVIII, 622. 3 Scheller, Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. [etc.], I Abt. Orig., Jena. 1908 LXVI, 385. * Gregg, Boston M. & S. J., 1908, CLIX, 80. 8 Chalmers, Rep. of Med. Off. Health, Glasgow, 1907, 61.