HEALTH HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 22, 26 January 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

HEALTH HINTS.

THE TYPHOID FEVER SEASON

•V FORECAST AND A WARNING

(By Dr. Andrew Wilson, in the "Daily

Mail.")

It, is the main duty of the sanitarian to prevent disease, as it is the business of the physician to cure it.

Nowhere do we find the enormous advantage of a knowledge of sanitation, viewed as a personal matter, more plainly illustrated than, in its ability to forecast the onset of epidemics, very much as meteorologists predict storms of another land. It mar be news to many people that hygiene* is able to forewarn us of the probable times and seasons when certain disases are more likely to attack us than at other periods. Thanks to the researches of Sir Arthur Mitchell, M.D., and Dr. Alexander Buchan, we Icnow something fairly definite regarding what may be called diseaseseasons. They investigated numberless records of epidemics, noting when the maximum and minimum period of each appeared in the year's calendar. By aid of a series of diagrams, each consisting: of twelve spaces for the months, a straight line for the mean of the disease, and a curved line showing up against the mean line, the ri3e and fall of the disease through the year's periods, these observers placed the forecasting of many ailments on a sound and scientific basis. ! "FALL FEVER." ' Now, as regards typhoid fever, one of our modern plagues which we | should have got rid of long ago, it is emphatically an ailment associated with the autumn season. In America it is called "fall fever," for this reason. What is meant by the above statement is, that the disease attains its maximum in October and November, and the' curved line therefore rises in the diagram above the mean line towards the end of September, and conlinues to rise during October and November, or at least to maintain its I height, only beginning1 to show a drop I when December arrives. Xo doubt we have typhoid fever j more or less constantly with us. All ■through the year cases of "enteric," as | doctors term it. are met with; but the i seasonal development is quite another i thing, and that, we nre just approachling the typhoid fever time, when there must be more risk of infection to everybody, is a statement that admits of no contradiction. If one is asked the mea.ning of these facts—why diseases appear to develop specially each at a given period of the year—l should find a reply in a consideration of the facts of •germ-life. Typhoid fever is caused, like every other ailment of its type, by a specflc kind of microbe. We know the germ (or bacillus) quite well, and can identify it readily. THE ORIGIN OF TYPHOID. Microbes are, of course, living things, plants of the lowest grade ' probably, and as such, they exhibit | i their own special conditions of life I and of successful existence. We see j variations of marked kind With matter of the soils, for instance, In which I germs grow. One, that of typhoid, i lives in sewage and filth generally, a characteristic of other germs, it may be added. Another, that of typhus fever, lives on the foul matter of the! air in ill-ventilated, dirty, and over-1 crowded slums. Other germs, those of malaria, prefer decaying1 veg-etation of swamps and marshes as their habitat, and so on. We find that each microbe requires its own special conditions for development, in so far as the soil is concerned. Now, apply the same idfa of germ "life to the period of the year, or to what is the same thing, to conditions of heat and cold, then we may see^ why one ailment is ehaiacterisvic of the summer time, another of the spring, and & third of the autumn. Each microbe will rise to its maximum development when '.he sorroundinir coi.3ifons are most favourable, and all one can sfly further in this matter of typhoid fever is, that it is ir. the fmimn temperature 'that the germ appears to find its most suitable environment. And so it is that, with an enormous increase of "germgrowth'' at the present season, we experience our greater liability to# attack. A FEW SIMPLE MAXIMS. The maxims which the sanitarian desires to enforce for the protection of the people from infection are few and simple. Typhoid fever is usually waterborne; then-fore. 1 say look to y*>ur water supply. If you' have cisterns, have them cleaned out. Every cistern, in fact, should be flushed out by the plumber every quarter. If you drink a water of which you are suspicious in' the matter of purity, boil it. If you attempt io filter it by nid of an ordinary filter, you may just as well drink it unfiltered. in so far as the power of that filter to remove disease germs from the water is concerned. The J only filters that should be used, are those which give us water sterilised— that is. free from nil traces of microbes—but this filter question is "another story." to which 1 may return later on. If you ensure that you drink a pure water only, you will* go far to escape infection' when abroad. My advice to my readers is never drink ordinary water. Drink Apollinaris or some other equally pure mineral water, which you can'obtain anywhere. Paris is suffering from typhoid at present. This is its annual visitation, and it is a calamity due solely to the pollution of water supplies with typhoid germs contained in sewage. This is the old, old story of typhoid epidemics everywhere — Maidstone, Darwen, Caversham, Cambridge, Paisley—of every place which has suffered from Land's End to John o' Groatfs. Bad drains bear a distinct relation to typhoid infection, because if sewer gases escape into our houses, and we inhale them, they weaken us, and thus predispose us to attack. But it is also tolerably certain that typhoid germs may pass into the air, "especially from sewage that has been allowed to diffuse itself in spray, and aerial infection is therefore possible. The bad drain may prove to be a source of infection, if, with its noxious vapours, the bacilli of typhoid pass into the atmosphere. A second point, therefore, in the way of prevention, is that contained in the axiom, "Look to your drains." WHAT TO EAT AND AVOID. Articles of food do not bear the

same intimate relation to typhoid fever attack as do water or drains. But it «ill be well to see that all vegetable foods are duly washed and cleansed, and here 1 am especially thinking- of lettuces and other constituents of salads, because they are eaten in an uncooked state. There is, however, one class of foods which come prominently into notice as a source of typhoid infection. I allude to shellfish.

Exeter is at present suffering1 from an outbreak of typhoid, due to eating cockles polluted with typhoid germs from the sewage that is allowed to mingle with the sea water. I believe there are cases arising from a similar source at Ipswich.

As for oysters, they are notorious as typhoid-producers, that is, when polluted with typhoid bacilli. I say be careful of all the shellfish you consume, and never eat an oyster off the shell. You are then liable to pick up extraneous matters adhering to the shell. Our safety here lies first in the oyster companies ensuring that their supplies are laid down in pure water only, and second, with the oyster retailer. His premises, an£ the water and buckets in which the oysters are kept, are not always as clean as. they might be.

ANDREW WILSOX.