In the statistics of General Oku's army, calculated to be at least 75,000 strong, Major-General Mori, chief medical officer, reports the typhoid cases to be 66 only between the dates of October 1904 and April 1905. 'Of this army 2142 were invalided home or died; 133 only being cases of typhoid fever.
The sickness incidence in the First Army under General Kuroki was as follows during the first six months of the campaign:-
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Months. Sickness: all Diseases. Typhoid Fever. March 3829 3
April 3545 1
May 3154 9
June 4824 9
July .... 5565 4
August . .. 6006 9
The figures are interesting when we consider that during the South African War of 1899-1902 no fewer than 31,000 men were invalided home to England on account of typhoid fever. One other point requires mention in connexion with prevention, namely, protective inoculation. This is performed with an anti-toxic substance prepared from dead cultures of bacilli, and has been tried on a fairly large scale, particularly on the British army in India and South Africa. Sir W. B. Leishman, writing on the results of anti-typhoid inoculations in the army (/ourn. of R.A M.C., February 1909), gives the total number of men inoculated up to the 1st of June 1908 as 5473, amongst whom 21 cases (3-8 per 1000)with 2 deaths occurred. The number non-inoculated, 6610 men, had an incidence of 187 cases (28-3 per 1000) with 26 deaths. The case mortality of the inoculated was 9- 5%, of the non-inoculated 13~8%. Several regiments however were not exposed to enteric fever. If these be excluded the incidence in the inoculated is 6-6 per 1000 against 39-5 per 1000 in the non-inoculated. Lord Kitchener, speaking at Middlesex Hospital in October 1910, bore emphatic testimony to the value of inoculation coupled with improved sanitary methods on the health of the army in India, declaring his belief that enteric would before long join cholera in total banishment from the barracks.
TYPHON (Typhaon, Typhoeus), in Greek mythology, youngest son of Gaea and Tartarus. He is described as a grisly
monster with a hundred dragons' heads, who was conquered
and cast into Tartarus by Zeus. In other accounts, he is confined
in the land of the Arimi in Cilicia (Iliad, ii. 783) or under
Etna (Aeschylus, P.V. 370) or in other volcanic regions, where
he is the cause of eruptions. Typhon is thus the personification
of volcanic forces. Amongst his children by Echidna are
Cerberus, the Lernaean hydra, and the Chimaera. He is also
the father of dangerous winds (typhoons), and by later writers
is identified with the Egyptian Seth.
See Eduard Meyer, Set-Typhon (1875), and M. Mayer, Die Giganten und Titanen (1887); Preller-Robert, Griechische Mythologie (1894), pp. 63–66; O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie, ii. 845, 1333, according to whom Typhon, the “ snake-footed ” earth-spirit, is the god of the destructive wind, perhaps originally of the sirocco, but early taken by the Phoenicians to denote the north wind, in which sense it was probably used by the Greeks of the 5th century in nautical language; and also in Philologus, ii. n.f. (1889), where he endeavours to prove the identity of Typhon with the Phoenician Zephon (Baal-Zephon, translated in Gesenius's Thesaurus by “ locus Typhonis " or “ Typhoni saar ”), signifying “ darkness,” “the north wind," and perhaps “ snake ”; A. von Mess, “ Der Typhonmythus bei Pindar und Aeschylus," in Rhein. Mus. lvi. (1901), 167.
TYPHOON (probably from the Arabic and Hindustani tufān,
a tempest, which is perhaps derived from Typhon, q.v.: the Chinese t'ai fung, strong wind, is not used in application to typhoons), the name given to a heavy cyclonic storm in the seas fringing the eastern coast of Asia from Japan to the
Philippine Islands. Typhoons generally occur in a series
during the August, September and October, the
season when the belt of equatorial calms in the Pacific Ocean
reaches its northerly extension.
TYPHUS FEVER (from Gr. τύφος, smoke or mist, in
allusion to the stupor of the disease), an acute infectious disease
of highly contagious nature, lasting for about fourteen days,
and characterized mainly by great prostration of strength,
severe nervous symptoms, and a peculiar eruption on the skin.
It has received numerous other names, such as pestilential,
putrid, jail, hospital fever, exanthematic typhus, &c. It
appears to have been known for many centuries as a destructive
malady, frequently appearing in epidemic form, in all countries
in Europe, under the conditions to be afterwards referred to.
The best accounts of the disease are those given by old English
writers, who narrate its ravages in towns and describe many
“ black assizes," in which it was communicated by prisoners
brought into court to the judges, jurymen, court officials, &c.,
with fatal effect. Typhus fever would seem to have been
observed in almost all parts of the world; but it has most
frequently prevailed in temperate or cold climates.
The conditions concerned in its production include both the predisposing and the exciting. Of the former the most powerful are those influences which lower the health of a community, especially overcrowding and poverty. Hence this fever is most frequently found to affect the poor of large cities and towns, or to appear where large numbers of persons are living crowded together in unfavourable hygienic conditions, as has often been seen in prisons, workhouses, &c. Armies in the field are also liable to suffer from this disease; for instance, during the Crimean War it caused an enormous mortality among the French troops. Recently, however, an important change of view of the connexion of typhus fever has arisen. Professor Matthew Hay (Journal of Public Health, September 1907) attributes the spread of typhus fever to fleas. His observations are based on the epidemic in Aberdeen. He sums up his conclusions in the following manner: (1) Every case in hospital examined by Professor Hay and his assistants was flea bitten, and those of the staff who complained of flea bites were attacked. Care was exercised to distinguish between flea bites and petechiae. (2) Where a patient was apparently free from bites it was found he had been in contact with verminous families. (3) The disease did not spread in clean houses with clean inhabitants, even when a typhus patient remained in the dwelling during his entire illness. (4) All nurses or wards-maids who were attacked were in contact with the patients when they were first admitted. No nurse, wards-maid or doctor who had been in closing contact with the cases when cleaned contracted the diseases (5) An ambulance driver who complained of being pestered by fleas contracted typhus fever, but when the ambulance staff were adequately protected from fleas no other cases developed.
Typhus is now regarded as certainly due to the action of some specific micro-organism (see Parasitic Diseases), but the bacteriology is still imperfect. In 1891 Jaroslav Hlava, of Prague, found in the blood of 20 out of 33 cases of typhus a well-defined organism which he termed the strepto-bacillus. Lewaschew in 1892 found in the blood and spleen of typhus patients small round highly refractive actively-moving bodies lying between the corpuscles. Sometimes these bodies were flagellate Dubieff and Bruhl also found a diplococcus in the blood which they named the diplococcus exanthematicus.
The course of typhus fever is characterized by certain well marked stages. 1. The stage of incubation, or the period elapsing between the reception of the fever poison into the system and the manifestation of the special evidence of the disease, is believed to vary from a week to ten days. During this time, beyond feelings of languor, no particular symptoms are exhibited.
2. The invasion of the fever is in general well marked and severe, in the form of a distinct rigor, or of feelings of chilliness lasting for hours, and a sense of illness and prostration, together with headache of a distressing character and sleeplessness. Feverish symptoms soon appear and the temperature of the body rises to a considerable height (103°–105°F.), at which it continues with little daily variation until about the period of the crisis. It is, however, of importance to observe certain points connected with the temperature during the progress of this fever. Thusabout the seventh day the acme of the fever heat has been reached; and a slight subsidence (1° or less) of the temperature takes place in favourable cases, and no further subsequent rise beyond this lowered level occurs. When it is otherwise, the case often proves a severe one. Again, when the fever has advanced towards the end of the second week, slight falls of temperature are often observed, prior to the extensive descent which marks the attainment of the crisis. The pulse in
