Abstract
THIS handsome volume is a thesis on the question of how typhoid or enteric fever is propagated. Dr. Budd adopts what is known as the contagion theory, and believes that every case of the disease is the result of direct poison, conveyed either by the air or more frequently in water, from the intestine of one patient to that of another. This theory is generally disbelieved by the best medical authorities in London and Paris; but, as Dr. Budd points out, it is not in large towns that the transmission of disease can best be traced. He describes with minute exactness as to time, place, and other important conditions, outbreaks of this terrible disease in secluded country villages, in schools, and other isolated institutions, where he was able to trace the steps of the epidemic from house to house or from room to room. We believe that a candid perusal of these cases will bring the conviction that the theory of contagion is fairly proved. Many of them are at all events almost decisive against the theory that this enteric fever is “pythogenic,” i.e. is the result of a poison which may be produced by any decomposing sewage under favourable circumstances, without previous contamination from a diseased person. The practical importance of the question is, that if enteric fever only spreads as Dr. Budd and other contagionists maintain, it is possible, and therefore of the utmost importance, to check its propagation. A great part of the book is devoted to this point, and the mode of destroying diseased products is carefully detailed.
Typhoid Fever: its Nature, Mode of Spreading, and Prevention.
By William Budd Pp. 193. Three plain and one coloured lithograph. (Longmans, 1873.)
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S., P. Typhoid Fever: its Nature, Mode of Spreading, and Prevention . Nature 9, 280 (1874). https://doi.org/10.1038/009280a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/009280a0