Typhoid fever and its abortive treatment

Front matter

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Preface

The objects that are sought to be accomplished by the issuance of this book are : First, to present to the members of the medical profession so much evidence of the truth of the " startling- declaration that typhoid fever can be aborted" as will induce a large number of physicians to give antiseptic medicine a fair and faithful trial in this disease — the most destructive to adolescent life of all of the acute specific infections — a disease which is both preventable and curable, but which is not only not excluded from, but has been practically invited to invade every community, and has hitherto been allowed to pursue its course uninterrupted by any scientific or efficacious treatment ; second, to give such explicit directions as will enable all physicians to so intelligently apply the principles of antiseptic medicine to the cure of typhoid fever that they may secure for their patients the least inconvenience and suffering, the shortest duration of illness, and the lowest possible death rate ; third, and finally, to impress upon the minds of the members of this medical profession the enormity of the crime which is committed by all communities that pour their excrement laden sewage into our fresh water lakes and rivers, in violation of all sanitary principles, of genuine humaneness and even of common decency ; to the subversion of all efforts at the prophylaxis of typhoid fever, cholera, and other diseases.

The book is written in defiance of the opinions of the bacteriologist, who has demonstrated the impossi-

2 PREFACE.

bility of destroying- the bacillus typhosis in living man ; of the pathologist, who has shown that the microorganism finds its way deep into all of the organs of the body, and hence cannot be dislodged ; of- the therapeutist, who has asserted that drugs can accomplish no useful purpose in the treatment of typhoid fever ; and of the theorist^ who has exposed the ignorance of those who believe in the curability of the disease.

The bootless task of endeavoring to demonstrate the manner in which these antiseptic medicines produce their effects, or the settling of other moot questions, has not been essayed ; but these pages will show that for more than fourteen years I have had no death from typhoid fever in a locality in which my death rate had previously been very high — that in no instance in which a case of typhoid fever has come under my care prior to the eighth day of illness have I failed to abort the disease in ten or twelve days or less — that in no instance in which I have been called so early that a reasonably positive diagnosis could not be made on the first or second visit, have I had a well-developed case of typhoid fever, although many such cases have presented pathognomonic symptoms of the disease, and they will also show that so large a number other physicians have demonstrated the power of abortifacients over typhoid fever, that, as an ex-President of the Ohio State Medical Society said in a public address (see page 161) "it (the treatment) has stood the crucial test for years in hundreds of cases and the theory is fully sustained by the long list of victories achieved."

It is to be hoped, therefore, that the importance of the subject to both physicians and their patients, will justify the haste which sent the book from the printer to the

PREFACE. 3

electrotyper without waiting to have the page proofs returned to me for correction, and that this entrusting of the final proof reading to the printers will serve as an excuse for any consequent grammatical or typographical defects which may mar its pages.

637 Prospect Street, Cleveland, Ohio. March 10, 1896.