Health on the Farm: A Manual of Rural Sanitation and HygieneHarris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)
Science
Health on the Farm: A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene
Harris, H. F. (Henry Fauntleroy)
Rural health; Sanitation, Household
The mortality in typhoid fever varies from five to twenty per
cent., depending upon the character of the disease and the nature
of the nursing and treatment that the patient receives.
_Modes of Infection._--It is clear that typhoid fever is the result of
the entrance into the body of some minute form of germ-life, whether this
be the bacterium generally supposed to induce the disease or not. This
contagion is beyond question a living something which multiplies with
great rapidity under proper conditions, and, escaping from the bodies of
those infected with the disease, in one way or another, reaches other
individuals. It is beyond question true that the virus passes from the
body of those infected by means of the urine and feces, and it is likely
that the secretions from the mouth and nose frequently contain the germs
that cause the fever.
As the germs are certainly extraordinarily minute, a very small amount of
any of these excretions might produce the disease in healthy individuals
if it were to get into their bodies through water, milk, or any uncooked
food, or if it were to find lodgment about the nose or mouth, or get upon
the hands of other persons. It should also be remembered that the virus
may easily get upon cooking-utensils, drinking-cups, bed-linen, and other
articles with which we are constantly brought into close contact, and
that the disease might be transmitted in this way. It is also true that
the malady may be carried from place to place by insects, particularly
flies; the latter may readily get enough infectious material upon their
legs in various ways, and then, crawling over the food, leave the deadly
poison deposited upon it.
_Treatment of Typhoid Fever._--As soon as the symptoms appear, a
physician should be called and his directions faithfully and carefully
followed out. Nothing in this disease is of more importance than careful
nursing, and it is absolutely necessary that the patient receive only
liquid diet until the physician permits other food.
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