But perhaps the most striking example of this mode of propagation of the disease is that recorded by Budd,[35] and is as follows: Two adjacent cottages, which for the sake of convenience may be designated as Nos. 1 and 2, had a privy in common, which was in the form of a lean-to against the gable end of No. 2. Through this privy there flowed with very feeble current a small stream which formed the natural drain for it. Having already performed this office for some twenty or thirty other houses higher up its course, the stream had acquired all the character of a common sewer before reaching the cottages in question. About a quarter of a mile farther on it acted as a drain for a privy, common as before, for two other cottages, Nos. 3 and 4. Notwithstanding the condition of the stream, which was so foul that it was said that the stink from it was often enough "to knock a man down," no evil result appeared to have occurred until a man living in No. 1 contracted typhoid fever--elsewhere, it was believed. As a matter of course, all his discharges were thrown into the common privy. In this way for more than a fortnight the stream which passed through it was daily fed with the specific excreta from the diseased intestines of the patient. No further cases occurred until the latter end of the third week or the beginning of the fourth week, when several persons were simultaneously attacked by the same fever in all four cottages. From first to last, the outbreak was confined to these four cottages, and there was no other case of typhoid fever at this time in the neighborhood. [Footnote 35: _Typhoid Fever: Its Nature, Mode of Spreading, and Prevention_, by William Budd, M.D., F.R.S., London, 1873.] The mattrass used by typhoid-fever patients, their bed-linen and clothes, have each been the medium by which the disease has been communicated to others. This is, as has already been pointed out, unquestionably due to the fact that these articles are generally soiled by their discharges, and that time has been allowed for the latter to acquire infective properties. It seems not improbable that the few cases in which the disease appears to have been contracted from the dead body may be explained in the same way. The statistics of the London Fever Hospital show that laundresses are more liable to contract typhoid fever than the immediate attendants upon the sick. This liability is greatest in those cases in which the bed-linen and clothes of patients are not immediately disinfected after use. According to Budd, the sputa in cases of typhoid fever where bronchitis is excessive may sometimes contain the germs of the disease, and mentioned a case in which he believed they were the means by which the disease was propagated.