Typhoid fever : its causation, transmission and prevention / by George C. Whipple, with an introductory essay by William T. Sedgwick.

  • Whipple, George Chandler, 1866-1924.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Typhoid fever : its causation, transmission and prevention / by George C. Whipple, with an introductory essay by William T. Sedgwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    have been unduly exaggerated, unproven statements have been given currency, while some of the less tech- nical but more practical matters have been undervalued or almost entirely overlooked. As an illustration of this situation we may take the current opinion of the nature of the disease, — its infectious character has been so much emphasized that the fact that it is contagious as well as infectious has been quite neglected. The fight against typhoid fever must be made largely by men of two professions, by physicians and engineers. Differences in temperament, in training, and in the nature of their work have prevented these two profes- sions from cooperating as closely as they must if typhoid fever is to be relegated to the class of infrequent diseases. The doctor naturally thinks of men as individuals; he is not accustomed to think of men in masses. The sanitary engineer, with his genius for mathematics and statistics, studies communities at large, and is in danger of neglect- ing to study the details of particular cases. The two professions admirably supplement each other. The engineer is by training the best fitted to control the measures which are instrumental in warding off the disease, to deal with matters of water-supply, sewage disposal, and the other sanitary arts; while the physician is best fitted to attack the disease in the household. The object of this book is to furnish to the members of these two professions a condensed summary of the most important facts that have been learned regarding typhoid fever, so far as they relate to the prevention and spread of the disease; to furnish to the student of sani- tary science a group of illustrations of some of the leading