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7
cases would be found aggregated together in the neighbourhood
of some particular sewer, where it may be assumed
the bacillus of Typhoid had established a habitat, and in
houses where defective drains provide a constant or intermittent
supply of contaminated air; again, if milk or water
be the medium of contagion, the distribution of cases
might be expected to follow the idiosyncrasies of supply.
But as I have already remarked, the endemic form of
Typhoid under consideration does not exhibit any selective
power in regard either to insanitary area or habitation.
It does not follow, as far as can be ascertained, the steps
of the milkman on his rounds, nor can it be said that it
disposes itself in any consequential order within the
sphere of distribution of a particular section of the water
supply.
Typhoid reaches the human system by gaining an
entrance at the mouth. Infective particles, mixed either
with milk or water, or adherent to the surface of solid and
less permeable articles of consumption, are conveyed
through this portal to the alimentary tract during the act of
eating or drinking. The spores are not inhaled with the
air, as general report would have us believe, however largely
that medium may have been impregnated by admixture
with unwholesome vapours. Nor are they endowed with
any exceptional power that enables them to force a passage
to the interior through the natural protective coverings of
the body. Moreover, Typhoid always comes from Typhoid,
and from nothing else besides. Neither water nor milk nor
other food can become the soil of Typhoid unless seeds
have been planted; nay, sewage itself cannot give birth to
Typhoid, or induce its growth, except it have contained
within it germs recently cast from the intestines of a person
who is the subject of disease. If these sporadic cases of