Chapter XXV: How Typhoid Fever Germs Are Carried

[Sidenote: How typhoid fever germs get into the system]

There are certain diseases, the germs of which get into bodies through our mouths. That is, we eat or drink them. Some of these diseases are typhoid fever, cholera, the summer complaints of children, tuberculosis, and diphtheria. At present we shall learn about the germ that causes typhoid fever, how it gets into our food and drink, and how we may prevent the disease by getting rid of this germ.

Typhoid fever, like all other diseases caused by germs, is caused by one kind of germ, and one kind only. You cannot get typhoid fever by eating cholera germs any more than you can get diphtheria from typhoid germs.

[Sidenote: Animals free from typhoid]

So far as we know, there is no animal except man that has typhoid fever. Since the germs of any disease must come from an animal suffering from that disease, and as man is the only animal that has typhoid fever, it naturally follows that the only way to get typhoid fever is from some person who has the fever or has had it.

[Sidenote: How typhoid germs leave the body]

We know that typhoid fever germs get into the body with food, but how do they get out? Once in a great while germs are found in the matter that the patient vomits, or spits up, but this is a rare occurrence, so rare that we need hardly consider it. The germs are present in the blood of the sufferer, but other people do not get his blood on their hands or in their food. There are two things that come from the patient that are loaded with these germs, and these are the urine and bowel discharges. In these two excretions of the body are found practically all the typhoid germs that come from the patient, and these are the causes of other infections. In other words, it is from these two excretions that the germs get into food and drink.

[Sidenote: How typhoid germs get into water]

How do the typhoid germs get into our food? What is done with the excretions after they come from the body? You will probably say that the nurse throws them into the sewer. Very true; but where do they go when they are thrown into the sewer? The sewer must empty somewhere, and in most instances it empties into a stream, the water of which is used for drinking purposes.

[Sidenote: The widespread evil due to the sickness of one person]

You may think that the germs from one person would not make much difference, but that is where you are mistaken. There is a town in Pennsylvania of about eight thousand inhabitants, which gets its water from a stream that flows down from the mountains. One cold winter, while the stream was frozen, a man living on the bank of the stream was taken sick with typhoid fever. His nurse threw the urine and the discharges from his bowels on the ice on the bank of the creek. When the ice melted, the typhoid germs in the discharges found their way to the stream that furnished drinking water to people farther down, and in a very short time there were over one thousand cases of typhoid fever in that town. Before the ice melted there had not been a single case of typhoid, and every one of the thousand cases came from the water into which had been allowed to flow the discharges from one man with typhoid fever. You see what germs from one person may do.

[Sidenote: How long typhoid fever germs live in a stream]

Sometimes people say that a stream purifies itself every few miles. It does purify itself of some things, but disease germs live from twenty-five to thirty-five days in water, and a stream flows a long way in thirty days.

[Sidenote: The pollution of streams with sewage]

Sometimes we hear people say that it is safe to put sewage into a certain stream, because no town uses that stream for drinking water. But of this they can never be sure. Not long ago certain people said that the water from the river which flowed through their town was used only by two dairymen and a vegetable gardener, and therefore there was no danger in running sewage into the stream. Yet the dairymen and the gardener sold all their produce in that very town. The townspeople never considered that the water into which they ran their sewage was used by the dairymen for washing their milk vessels (and perhaps for diluting the milk), and by the gardener for washing his lettuce and other vegetables. Thus the germs of disease were brought directly back to the town.

Do not think that you are safe in polluting a stream with sewage because no town uses the water from that stream. The individual on the farm is entitled to protection just as much as the individual in the town. Always remember that when you pollute with disease the water used by the farmer, he may bring that disease back into the town with the produce of his farm.

No sewage, no matter how small the amount, should ever be permitted to go into a stream until all the disease germs it contains have been killed. This can be done, though it will cost something; but we cannot get rid of disease germs without work, and work cannot be done without being paid for.

There are other ways of scattering typhoid germs besides running sewage into streams. Sometimes the nurse does not throw the discharges from a typhoid fever patient into a sewer at all, but into a closet vault. Remember how the material from a closet vault goes through open ground into a well, and you will understand what happens. The germs get into the well, and the whole family may then have typhoid fever.

Let us suppose that the nurse did not throw the discharges either into the closet or into the sewer, but carelessly threw them out on the ground behind the house, where, as it was winter time, they froze as hard as rocks. It does not seem to hurt typhoid germs in the least to be frozen; when they get warm again they are as lively as ever. Let us suppose these particular germs lay there all winter, but in the spring when everything melted the germs were still alive and ready to spread disease. It happened that they did not get into the well or into the milk, but they did get on your food, and made you ill with typhoid fever.

[Sidenote: How flies carry typhoid germs]

How did the germs get to your food? About the time that the germs were thawed out, and were beginning to double in number every hour or two, along came a fly and thought that spot an attractive one for a lunch. Accordingly he walked over this mass of filth, collecting a supply of germs on his feet, and then came in and tracked them over your bread and butter or other food.

[Sidenote: How typhoid germs get into milk]

That is how you got the fever; but the trouble did not stop with you. When you fell sick, your father thought it was time to clean the yard, but he was not very careful what he did with the dirt, including the typhoid fever discharges which the nurse threw out on the snow during the winter. There was a low place in the barnyard and there he dumped the dirt. One of the cows thought this fresh pile of dirt would make a comfortable place to lie down in. The next morning the milkman milked her without first washing her sides and udder, and hundreds of little particles of dirt, each one loaded with germs, fell into the milk. The milk from all the cows was mixed together, and by the time it got to town these germs had grown into many thousands. Some of the people who drank the milk became ill with typhoid fever and wondered afterward where they had taken this disease.

[Sidenote: Why the recovered patient is dangerous]

The discharges from a typhoid fever patient contain typhoid germs not only while the disease lasts, but for many months after the patient is well. In some cases they are present for years after the illness is over.

[Sidenote: The story of the careless nurses]

Here is a story about typhoid fever that illustrates the importance of washing and boiling everything that comes from a sickroom. A few years ago there was an epidemic of typhoid fever in a certain town. One of the hospitals was very much crowded, and it became necessary to employ several extra nurses. All the nurses knew the importance of washing their hands after handling the patients, and the old nurses had seen so many bad results from failure to observe this rule that they were very careful. Three of the new nurses, however, thought it a great deal of trouble to be washing their hands all the time, so more and more they neglected this important duty. The result was that all three of these girls got typhoid fever and died. They paid the penalty for neglecting the duty that they well knew they should have performed.

Typhoid fever can be wiped out by attention to neglected details--that is, by disinfecting discharges before throwing them away; by disposing of excretions only in places that are made for them; by adding lime to the closet vault every day to kill any germs present; by making the closet in such a way that flies cannot get into it; and by not permitting sewage to enter any stream until all the disease germs have been killed. All these things can be done. It will require a little work; but had you not rather take a little extra care than run the risk of catching or spreading typhoid fever?

=Questions.= 1. How do typhoid fever germs get into the body? 2.
What is one source of these germs? 3. How do these germs leave
the body? 4. Name several ways by which typhoid germs in a stream
may get into foods. 5. How do flies carry typhoid fever germs? 6.
How do these germs get into milk?

=Remember.= 1. Typhoid germs come from people who have typhoid
fever; they are found in the urine and bowel discharges. 2. No
one should ever answer Nature's calls except in a place provided
for that purpose. 3. No sewage should be allowed to go into any
stream until all the germs in it have been killed. 4. Disease
germs will live in running water fully as long as they will in
still water. 5. The discharges from a single person may infect a
whole city. 6. When typhoid fever germs get into milk, they grow
very rapidly; hundreds of people have been given typhoid fever by
drinking the milk from a dairy where there was a single person
sick with this disease. 7. People who have had typhoid often
carry the germs for several months after they are well.