View report page

57
Forty-six cases were notified and there were seven deaths.
As I have already fully reported the result of my investigations,
I need not repeat the matter. A report also went to the Local
Government Board.
The Nature and Causes of Typhoid Fever.
At the present time between 30,000 and 50,000 people suffer from
typhoid fever every year, and between 5,000 and 6,000 people die from
it in England and Wales alone. And yet typhoid fever is pre-eminently
a preventable disease. If we were to make full and proper use of the
knowledge which we have gained with regard to the causes of typhoid
fever, and the means of preventing it, we might—in England and Wales—
save nearly 5,000 lives a year, and prevent the prolonged sickness and
suffering of some 30,000 to 50,000 individuals. In fact, we might in
time exterminate the disease altogether.
Typhoid fever—according to our best Authorities—is caused by
living creatures named typhoid bacilli: creatures so small that they can
be seen only with the most powerful microscopes; so small that millions
of them may be crowded together into a few drops of fluid, or a few
grains of soil.
From a patient suffering from typhoid fever the typhoid bacilli are
given off in countless myriads; chiefly in the discharges from the bowels,
but also in the urine. If these bacilli are allowed to find their way into
the .surroundings or the food of man—such as the soil, or water or milk,—
they can multiply with marvellous rapidity. If they, again, find entrance
into the body of man they can multiply in the same way, and produce the
disease which we know as typhoid or enteric fever.