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Typhoid or Enteric Fever, Typhus, and Scarlet Fever.
These diseases have, during the last nine months, been very fatal in this
District. The deaths from typhoid and typhus, which in the returns are not
always separated, but are classed under the generic term "Fever," were, in
the quarters ending January, April, July, and October, respectively, 11, 9,
4, 23; and the deaths from scarlet-fever during the same quarters were 9,
13, 42, 80.
Typhoid or enteric fever has been designated by Dr. Murchison"
" Pylhogenic," signifying putrescent fever, or fever generated by putrescence.
The word pythogenic, as applied to this kind of fever, is not now often
used, for it is denied that the disease is caused by filth, even when filth is in
a state of putrefaction, and is only propagated by contagion.
This may be true, nevertheless, as dirt and decomposing filth, when
the same are contiguous to inhabited houses situated in confined localities,
tend to lower the vitality of the inmates, and thus render them more liable
to receive the poison of epidemic disease, it is the duty of all persons
engaged in carrying out the sanitary laws to cause to be removed, without
any unnecessary delay, all nuisances in the vicinity of dwelling-houses ;
and especially to see that every house is properly drained, and the drains
provided with efficient traps; for as London is never entirely free from
epidemic disease, and as the discharges from the sick are usually, without
previous disinfection, passed into the house drains, and so conveyed into the
sewers, these conduits of filth are always more or less charged with the
poison of epidemic disease, and persons inhaling the emanations from the
sewers are particularly liable to suffer from any prevailing epidemic. It is