Excerpt from The Canadian Practitioner, 1893, Vol. 18 Moreover, many affections with which typhoid may be confounded In its early stages require a form of treatment quite different from that for the disease under consideration. Typhoid fever I look upon as a disease produced by a distinct virus, probably of bacterial origin, which finds its way into the human system through the alimentary canal. The almost constant effects are the elevation of temperature, and the inflammation of Peyer's patches and the solitary glands of the intestine. Instead of giving a systematic dissertation on the diagnosis of th affection, I shall rather take up the difficulties which have occurred to me, hoping that in the discussion other points which I have omitted may be referred to. One of these difficulties is to distinguish between typhoid and tubercular meningitis in children. After a careful examina tion into every particular, the distinction is made in most cases with comparative ease. We have in meningitis the irregular pulse, the retracted abdomen, the constipation and the occurrence of those nervous phenomena which follow the brain lesions. I have, however, seen cases of meningitis which so closely resembled typhoid that a conclusion could not be arrived at until the peculiar nervous phenomena appeared. In typhoid fever there is a peculiarity in the delirium. It does not deepen into coma. The headache which may be a very prominent feature at the onset of both diseases usually disappears in four or five days typhoid. In the latter disease, one authority states there is often an interval between the cessation of the headache and the commencement of the delirium. In tubercular meningitis there is no such interval. In some cases of typhoid the pain in the back of the neck is so severe and continuous, and may be accompanied by such nervous symptoms, as to lead the attending physician to look upon the case as one of cerebro-spinal meningitis. If, however, he carefully watches for the development of the usual signs of typhoid, he will not long be left in doubt. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.