the patient has developed in his blood a sufficient antidote to the poison, so that the effects of the latter are no longer noticeable. The period of recovery, if the patient does recover, is most tedious, since the condition of the alimentary canal is such that great care must be exercised lest serious disorders there occur, and, although the patient is excessively hungry and really in great need of nourishing food, no greater folly can be committed than in allowing his desire for food to lead to indiscretion. Injudicious exposure or fatigue will also cause a relapse, and while recovery is usually a simple matter, it is only so when under the eye of a judicious and careful nurse. The only treatment required is plenty of water for drinking, to make up for the enormous loss by perspiration from the skin, which helps to wash out the poisons from the body. Then baths, where such methods of treatment can be used, as in hospitals, are also used both to lower the skin temperature and to add water to the surface. Sponge baths in water or alcohol are valuable and in some cases tub baths with the temperature as low as 40 degrees are used. Then a proper diet to keep up the strength of the patient, liquids always, and usually milk, forms the only other treatment possible. No drug is of any avail, and uninterrupted watchful care is the only way of combating the disease. In concluding this chapter, it may be mentioned that certain army officers interested in medical work have discovered what they believe to be an antitoxin for typhoid fever, and they have inoculated hundreds of soldiers as a preventative. The results are not yet conclusive, but there seems to be great promise. It is hoped that the time may come soon when people will be so educated that there will be no opportunity of the germs escaping from the sick room, and that food and drink will be so cared for that there will be no possibility of infection. The writer feels that it is in these last two methods of prevention rather than in the use of antitoxin that the hope of the future lies. CHAPTER XVIII _CHILDREN'S DISEASES_