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Prevention of Communicable Disease: Infection

Modes of Infection. - There is a common opinion among the laity that typhoid fever is contracted from foul drains and other things which contaminate the atmosphere; this is probably never the case, although such conditions may be injurious to health. the patient. A little reflection will show how easily the virus may get upon cooking utensils, drinking cups, bed linen, door knobs and similar articles, or may be carried from place to place by pets or insects, particularly flies.

The germs leave the patient's body in the discharges of the bowels and bladder, in some cases in the sputum and possibly in perspiration. Especially must it be borne in mind that the urine of a typhoid fever patient is even more dangerous than the stools.

The germs may be found in very large numbers in these discharges, upon the bed linen, in the water with which the patient is bathed and upon PREVENTION OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASE the utensils used in nursing and feeding him. They are probably never carried on dust through the air. If every typhoid germ was destroyed as soon as it left the human body the disease would be speedily eradicated.