According to the Sanitary News, Dr. Vaughn, of the Michigan State Laboratory of Hygiene, claims to have found the specific germ of typhoid fever in the air of a soil pipe from the prison at Jackson, in that State, during an outbreak of typhoid fever.
The Sanitary Inspector for February and March, reproduces from the Medical News an article by Dr. Henry Hun upon this subject. Dr. Hun cites twenty-nine cases in support of his statements. The histories are those of non-contagious diseases, and therefore were probably cases of illness produced by non-infected sewers. He says: “In all of these twenty-nine cases there was an escape of a large amount of sewer gas into the air which the patients breathed; and at the time that the case was observed, it seemed extremely probable that the sewer gas was the cause of the disease.
“From the consideration of these twenty-nine cases, we may conclude that it is probable that the following conditions may result from sewer-air poisoning:
“1. Vomiting and purging, either separately or combined.
“2. A form of nephritis.
“3. General debility, in some cases of which the heart is especially involved.
“4. Fever, which is frequently accompanied by chills.
“5. Sore throat, which is frequently of a diphtheritic character.
“6. Neuralgia.
“These conditions may occur separately, but are frequently combined, and it is especially common for the fever to be associated with other symptoms of sewer-gas poisoning. Finally, in cases of sewer-gas poisoning, there is one group of symptoms which is almost always prominent, and these symptoms are: loss of appetite, drowsiness, extreme prostration, and a dull, unpleasant feeling in the head; and whenever this group of symptoms occurs, not as the result of an attack of acute disease, but as a chronic condition, we are justified in suspecting that the patient is exposed to sewer-gas infection.”