PART I. TYPHOID FEVER. PRELIMINARY MATTERS. IN writing a L with that of Typho. fevers of the United States, I begin r three reasons. In the first place, my knowledge of the disease, derived from personal observation, is nuch more extensive than of the other forms of fever. My attention was early and strongly called to its investigation by the remarkable work of Louis upon the same. disease, as it shows itself in Paris. Many years of my professional life have been passed in the midst of a population especially exposed to some of its predisposing causes, and amongst whom it has very constantly, and at times very extensively, prevailed; so that a personal acquaintance with this fever, of twenty years' continuance, has given me sufficient opportunity to become somewhat familiar with its character; more so, at any rate, than with the remaining diseases which I propose to describe. In the second place, there is good reason to think that typhoid fever is more generally and extensively prevalent, in various parts of the world, than the other distinct forms of essential or idiopathic fever. This is a point which requires further and more accurate observation for its settlement; but it is pretty certainly true of the temperate latitudes of Europe and America. The actual extent of its prevalence will be more fully spoken of hereafter. In the third place, typhoid fever has been more minutely, more accurately, more thoroughly studied, than any other distinct form |