There are many other observations which seem to render it certain that the alvine dejections are a most important medium by which typhoid fever is communicated to others; and yet there is no evidence that they possess this power in a fresh condition. They have been repeatedly examined, and even handled, with impunity, and, as has already been stated, it {250} is rare for the disease to be imparted to the immediate attendants upon the sick, or in a well-ventilated hospital to the other patients in the same ward, provided that the discharges are disinfected and removed immediately after being passed, and the bed-linen and clothes of the patient changed whenever they are soiled. The feces must therefore undergo some changes before they become possessed of virulent properties. This appears to be shown conclusively by the following facts: (1) laundresses who wash the soiled clothes of typhoid fever patients not infrequently contract the disease; (2) the occupants of houses connected by ill-trapped drains with sewers into which the discharges of such patients have found their way often suffer severely from the disease; and (3) the use of water polluted by such discharges is, as has already been shown, almost certain to induce the disease in persons not protected by a previous attack. The following histories of outbreaks of typhoid fever will show clearly how the dejections of patients may be the means of propagating the disease to others: ILLUSTRATIVE CASES--Lausen[29] is a village lying on the railway between Basle and Olten shortly before coming to the great Hauenstein Tunnel. It is situated in the Jura, in the valley of the Ergolz, and consists of 103 houses with 819 inhabitants. It was remarkably healthy, and resorted to on that account as a place of summer residence. With the exception of six houses it is supplied with water by a spring with two heads which rises above the village at the southern foot of a mountain called the Stockhalder, composed of oolite. The water is received into a well built covered reservoir, and is distributed by wooden pipes to four public fountains, whence it was drawn by the inhabitants. Six houses had an independent supply--five from wells, one from the mill-dam of a paper-factory. On August 7, 1872, ten inhabitants of Lausen, living in different houses, were seized by typhoid fever, and during the next nine days fifty-seven cases occurred, the only houses escaping being those six which were not supplied by the public fountains. The disease continued to spread, and in all 130 persons were attacked, and several children who had been sent to Lausen for the benefit of the fresh air fell ill after their return home. A careful investigation was made into the causes of this epidemic, and a complete explanation was given. Separated from the valley of the Ergolz, in which Lausen lies, by the Stockhalder, the mountain at the foot of which the spring supplying Lausen rises,