se with vastly greater frequency than in other
years.

=Mumps.=--It has been questioned whether that painful but not dangerous
ailment the _mumps_, ought or ought not to be classed with these fevers.
I think it should, for it is contagious, infectious, runs a fairly
definite course, is attended with invariable external appearances, often
prevails epidemically, and one attack preserves in most instances from a
second.

It very seldom befalls children under seven years of age, and is more
frequent in early youth than in childhood. It sets in with the ordinary
symptoms of a cold, which are followed in about twenty-four hours by
stiffness of the neck, and pain about the lower jaw, which is increased
by speaking or swallowing. At the same time a swelling appears,
sometimes on one side sometimes on both of the lower jaw, and increases
very rapidly so as to occasion great disfigurement of the face. The
swelling goes on to increase, and to become more tense, attended with
more head-ache, fever, and discomfort for some forty-eight hours, but
then it begins to lessen, and the general illness subsides rapidly,
though the enlarged gland, for that is the cause of the swelling,
sometimes does not return to its natural size for a week, ten days, or
more; and now and then, though very rarely, an abscess forms, which is
both tedious and troublesome.

The treatment suitable for a severe common cold, together with the
constant application of a warm poultice to the swollen gland, is all
that is usually required, though the doctor's help is often needed to
relieve the suffering which for the first day or two in many instances
attends the ailment.

=Typhoid Fever.=--There is no question as to the place which should be
occupied by typhoid fever, smallpox, measles, and scarlatina, for all
belong to the class of eruptive fevers. They are all specific diseases,
each due to its own peculiar poison, and not capable of being produced
by any mere unsanitary conditions, though such may aggravate their
severity and facilitate their spread.

The belief in the special character of each of these diseases has
received strong confirmation from the researches of the eminent
Frenchman, M. Pasteur, and others who have followed in his track. They
have discovered in the blood and other secretions, and in some of the
tissues both of men and animals, minute microscopic organisms which
differ in their characters in different diseases. Experiment has further