The Etiology of Typhus Fever

Abstract

Typhus Fever is a disease which modern sanitary reform has banished from the midst of progressive communities. As a result few opportunities are now afforded for investigating the disease by the bacteriological methods of to-day. Sporadic cases and small epidemics occur from time to time in the few insanitary districts that remain in Belfast. Dr Ernest H. Milligan and I made some observations of a bacteriological nature on this disease which we communicated to the Ulster Medical Society in 1908. Since that time I have continued the investigations when any opportunity occurred and in this paper are recorded the results which have been obtained. Recently some new light has been thrown on the etiology of typhus fever, so the present time appeared to me to be opportune to publish our own observations, to analyse the findings of other observers and to discover what is truly established with regard to this subject.