_Character and Course of the Disease._--Typhoid fever, enteric fever, or abdominal typhus, is an infectious disease believed to be caused by a specific bacterial germ known as the _Bacillus typhosus_. It develops, as a rule, quite slowly, the first symptoms being loss of appetite, headache, and a marked fatigue on slight exertion. These symptoms gradually grow worse, fever develops, and the patient oftentimes suffers with chilly sensations; the temperature gradually rises, and in the course of from a few days to a week reaches a height of 102 degrees, 103 degrees, 104 degrees, or 105 degrees F. In many cases no symptoms exist that indicate trouble with the bowels, but in the severe forms of the disease diarrhoea generally comes on during the first week and continues throughout the course of the disease. During the second week the symptoms above detailed continue, becoming often more severe, and there develops great nervousness and delirium. About this time there are frequently observed over the chest, abdomen and thighs, minute reddish spots resembling flea-bites; these spots last for a few days and then pass away and are followed by a fresh crop in other situations. During this period of the disease inflammation of the bronchial tubes frequently comes on, and now and then pneumonia develops. Bleeding from the bowels is an occasional highly characteristic symptom of the second week. When the disease follows a normal course, the symptoms during the third week begin gradually to abate; the fever lessens, and the patient, though much emaciated, gradually returns to a normal condition. Unfortunately, however, the disease does not always pursue this favorable course, for, in quite a proportion of instances, the symptoms increase in severity during the second or third week, the patient becomes profoundly prostrated, the delirium deepens, and death occurs. The hemorrhage from the bowels, in some instances, is so severe that death is produced even in comparatively early stages of the affection. In many instances, through indiscretion, usually as a result of eating solid food, patients who are apparently on the road to rapid recovery, relapse, and the disease repeats the course already detailed. It is of importance to remember that now and then so-called walking cases of typhoid fever occur, the disease in these instances being characterized by the fact that the symptoms are so slight that the sufferer does not feel it necessary to go to bed. However, in these mild cases, fatal hemorrhage from the bowels is as frequent as in the severer types, and as a consequence the patient should receive careful attention. Moreover, it is of importance to remember that from this mild form of the affection the most malignant varieties of the disease may be contracted.