MODERN GERM MANIA: A CASE IN POINT.
Under the sensational heading, Doomed to Carry Germs: Woman Typhoid Victim for Life, the following account appeared recently in News of the World:—
Almost unique in medical history is the case of a woman typhoid carrier, who, it is said, will carry the bacilli with her through life. The case is described by Dr Barbara Cunningham in a report of the Manchester Medical Officer of Health. In order that the woman shall cease to be a source of danger—as she has been keeping lodgers—the health authorities are giving her 7s. a week, and that, with her old-age pension of 5s., will be sufficient to keep her without lodgers. The case has aroused much interest in Manchester. The principal restrictions on the part of the Health Department are that she must not cook or wash for anyone. Anyone can, however, cook for her. In discussing the case Dr Martin, who for 25 years was Medical Officer of Health for Gorton, remarked that in some cases of typhoid carriers the infection ceased to exist for a time, but it was unusual for it to exist year after year. “The reason for the woman referred to carrying the typhoid bacilli with her through life is,” he added, “because of a peculiarity of constitution. There is no remedy to be found for it at present, and no means of freeing her from the germs, hence the reward offered by an American to anyone who can find a remedy for such cases. The germs themselves are proof against remedies, and they go on multiplying. The woman is incurable, and you cannot kill the germs without killing the woman. It is the first case, to my knowledge, where the health authorities have taken such measures to prevent a spread of the infection.” The history of the affair is interesting. The woman's case had been reported to the authorities, and when her lodger became ill with typhus she was suspected, and was found to be giving off large numbers of typhoid bacilli. She was placed in Monsall Hospital for two months, during which time she was treated with gradually increasing doses of vaccine prepared in the Public Health Laboratory, York Place. When discharged, three separate tests were made as regards the typhoid bacilli. For one week after her discharge the organisms did not reappear, but during the second week a few colonies were grown, and in the third and fourth weeks the number increased. Shortly after that her lodger developed enteric fever.
This case is instructive, because it shows very clearly the utter futility of the modern method of treating infectious diseases by means of drugs and vaccines.
It is well known that the infecting agent or microbe found in cases of typhoid fever originates in man himself, that, in fact, it is essentially a man-made disorder. Dr Budd, who was the first to fully investigate this important subject, brought together the most convincing considerations to show this.
We know further that impure water and milk, shellfish and certain foods which are contaminated with sewage are capable of giving rise to epidemics of this complaint.
This was shown in Paris in May last, when a plumber carelessly connected a pipe along which Seine water flowed to a drinking-water pipe. The typhoid germ is always present in Seine water and this mistake cost the lives of twenty people.
Dr Freeman, an American doctor, who has studied the habits of the typhoid germ, tells us that it does not survive so well outside the human body as does the tubercle microbe, but it can, nevertheless, do an incalculable amount of mischief when the local authorities are careless about the matter of sewage disposal.
A great deal has been heard of late of what are termed Typhoid Carriers. There are apparently numbers of people who, while they appear to be in good health, yet harbour these germs and are thus liable to infect others with them; and the problem is what to do with them.