TYPHUS FEVER (Neo-Lat., from Gk. rivoc, stupor, mist, vapor. smoke), JAIL FEVER, SIIIP FEVER, or SPOTTED FEVER. An acute, specif ic and highly contagious fever, endemic, and also prevailing hi epidemics. especially in times of destitution and in the presence of overcrowding and bad ventilation, presumably due to a micro organism, as yet undiscovered, and attended with no characteristic lesion of the tissues, as in the case of typhoid fever, hut with serious alteration of the blood. It is ushered in by an abrupt onset, with marked nervous symptoms, rheumatic pains, rigors, and headache. A maculated eruption ap pears, most commonly on the fifth day of the disease, of slightly elevated spots, disappearing on pressure at first. afterwards persistent and darker, and there is early prostration of the ner vous and muscular systems. Delirium usually comes on during the Second week, sometimes of an acute and noisy character, but oftener of a low, wandering kind, with a tendency to stupor. The fever terminates by a crisis. which generally occurs on o• about the fourteenth day, after which recovery is very rapid.
In former centuries typhus fever was a com mon scourge. in times of war and famine, under the names of jail fever. camp fever, ship fever, and the like. It is a disease of the temperate and cold zones, and this fact is regarded as caused to a considerable extent by the mode of life adopted by a great majority of the peoples of cold countries congregating, as multitudes of them do, in badly ventilated habitations. At the
present time the disease is limited to half-civil ized countries and to the slums of seaport cities. Local outbreaks sometimes occur on ships, and in jails and poorhouses. The mortality in different epidemics varies from 12 to 20 per cent. The disease is much more fatal after middle age than in the young. It was for a long time confused with typhoid fever (q.v.), but it differs from this in many ways.
The treatment of typhus is symptomatic. As the disease is exceedingly contagious. patients are promptly isolated and all objects that may have come in contact with them thoroughly dis infected. The high temperature is reduced by means of cold sponging, the cold pack, o• bathing, and by the administration of quinine, antifebrine, or phenaeetin. All patients are benefited by small doses of the mineral acids, and mild saline laxatives. For the headache and delirium cold applications to the head are indicated. Alcohol is used as a stimulant throughout the attack, to combat the great prostration. During convales cence such tonics as strychnine and quinine are most useful. The patient may be nourished by liquid foods.