-Typhus fever was for a long time confounded with typhoid, the two diseases being considered one and the same. Even now it is not always easy to distinguish them. There is the same dusky, heavy appearance in both, the same delirium, the same fever and prostration, and the same tendency to lung complications.
The distinguishing feature is the presence in typhoid of ulcers in the bowels. Consequently we have in typhoid tenderness and bloating of the abdomen with diarrhoea. But there are cases of typhoid in which diarrhoea is absent, and cases of typhus in which it is present. Typhoid, again, runs twenty-one days, and frequently relapses; it does not decline suddenly, but by degrees. Typhus only lasts fourteen days, and the improvement takes place suddenly, by “crisis,” as it is called. Then typhoid has the characteristic sparse rash, whilst typhus has a general rash, like measles, only darker. In typhus the head symptoms are generally more prominent than in typhoid, and this has obtained for it the name of “Brain-fever.” It is also different from typhoid in another important respect, though this does not help the diagnosis at first-it is highly infections from person to person. It is essentially a filth-generated disease, and never occurs except in over-crowded and unsanitary neighbourhoods. It will, however, spread form thence by infection to the healthier quarters of a town. Plague appears to be an intense form of typhus, in which enlargement and abscesses of the lymphatic glands occur.
General Treatment.-This is essentially the same as that recommended above for typhoid. Its duration of fourteen days necessitates most careful nursing and feeding to keep up the strength, as the wasting is extreme.
Medicines.-(Every hour).
Rhus. 3.
-Fever, delirium, restlessness.
Arsenicum 3.
-Creates vital depression.
Agaricus 3.
-Restlessness, twitching, tremor.
