n them, but reappear the moment the pressure is
withdrawn. Now and then they are numerous, and sometimes two or three
successive crops appear, the old ones fading as the others show
themselves; but in childhood they are often scanty, though whether few
or many, they are the external characteristic of the disease just as the
rash is in scarlatina or measles.

Whenever a child of whatever age begins without obvious cause to lose
appetite and health, to become feverish, with marked increase of
temperature towards evening for several days together, and more or less
disposition to diarrh[oe]a, it is all but absolutely certain that the
child has contracted typhoid fever.

When the disease comes on gradually, it seldom becomes dangerous, though
until the end of the first week there is always considerable uncertainty
on this point. The amount of diarrh[oe]a and the degree of disorder of
the brain, as shown by restlessness, delirium, and stupor are the
measure of the gravity of any case. There is, however, scarcely any
disease from which even when most severe recovery so often takes place
in childhood, and this not as persons so often imagine from some
critical occurrence but by a process of gradual amendment. The first
signs of amendment, too, may be taken as giving almost certain promise
of complete recovery; but it is well to bear in mind that there is no
disease of early life in which the mental faculties, though time brings
them back at length uninjured, remain so long in a state of feebleness
and torpor as in typhoid fever. Though the first signs of improvement,
too, are very seldom deceptive, yet the patient's convalescence is
almost always slow, and interrupted by many fluctuations.

Though contagious, still typhoid fever is far less directly contagious
than measles or scarlatina. It seems as if with this disease, just as
with cholera, the contagious element were present in its most active
form in the discharges from the bowels. These should therefore be
disinfected by carbolic acid or some other disinfectant immediately; and
should never be emptied in a closet used by other members of the family,
and more particularly by children. Special precautions also should be
taken with the bed-linen, and night-dresses of the patient; and it must
be remembered that wise precautions have nothing in common with
exaggerated alarm. One more hint will not be out of place. In typhoid
fever, and still more in the highly contagious meas