Abstract of report on the origin and spread of typhoid fever in U.S. military camps during the Spanish war of 1898 / by Walter Reed ... Victor C. Vaughan ... and Edward O. Shakespeare.
- Surgeon General of the United States Army
- Date:
- 1900
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Abstract of report on the origin and spread of typhoid fever in U.S. military camps during the Spanish war of 1898 / by Walter Reed ... Victor C. Vaughan ... and Edward O. Shakespeare. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![having hard work, suffering mucli exposure, drinking bad water, and living in insanitary camps, sulf ered comparatively little. The Seventh Dragoons and the Nineteenth Hussars remained long in camp at Cairo and suffered greatly, the disease being most prevalent among them during the months of November and December. According to Surgeon-Major Tarrant, the epidemic of typhoid fever which prevailed among the English and native troops in the Zulu war (1878-79) was imported into Fort Pearson from Thring's Post and Saccharine. In regard to the same epidemic, Major Hodgson states: Numbers of men came from Fort Chelmsford with remittent and simple con- tinued fev^er, of which a large portion proved to be enteric. In a general way, though a large proportion of the fevers were returned as simple continued, my impression is that nearly all of the cases were enteric of the milder or more severe type. From such inquiries as I was able to institute, I concluded that enteric fever was originally brought from Durban and was carried by the troops to the various stations where it broke out, and that in all cases it was aggravated by the gathering together of a large number of men and cattle, and the insanitary state which always accompanies such conditions. The history of mining expeditions also gives us instances of the transportation of typhoid fever to places far remote from the perma- nent habitations of man, as is illustrated by the epidemic at Dawson City, on the Yukon, in January, 1899. Indeed, the history of this disease justifies us in stating that wherever and whenever men con- gregate and live without adequate j)rovision for disposing of their excrement, there and then ty]3hoid fever will appear. This seems to be so universally^ true that manj^ men who have been engaged in the study of the epidemiology of this disease have come to agree with Murchison in his pythogenic doctrine concerning the origin of this disease. This theory supposes that typhoid fever may be generated independently of a previous case by the fermentation of fecal and other forms of organic matter. This conclusion results from the difficulty generally experienced in tracing the introduction of the disease. To this point we have given especial attention in our report^ and we have traced typhoid fever into every encampment in which it became epidemic and, as already stated, man himself is the most active agent in the dissemination of this disease. It is he who carries the specific virus about his person into all congregations of men. He deposits this virus in his excrement, and it is thence distributed in various ways among his fellow-men. (6) Dissemination of typhoid fever through the air. Is typhoid fever ever disseminated through the air? This is a ques- tion to which diverse answers have been given. Our present knowl- edge of the etiology of this disease gives no support to the old belief that it may be caused bj^ the inhalation of gases from decomposing organic matter. In the first place, infection can result only from the specific germ, and no amount of decomposing matter in which this>](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21230912_0242.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
