Who Discovered Typhoid?

Typhoid bacillus, or Salmonella typhosa, is the bacterium that causes typhoid fever. The disease has existed for more than 2,000 years and about 400 cases are reported annually in the United States today, most acquired through international travel. Typhoid is a serious health threat in underdeveloped countries that are densely populated and lack adequate sanitation facilities.

Symptoms

• Typhoid spreads through contaminated food or water and intimate contact with an infected person. It is an intestinal disease that causes severe abdominal pain and bowel irregularities. Typhoid is potentially life threatening, especially for the young and fragile, if the fever cannot be reduced and antibiotics are not a course of treatment.

Clinical Description

• The English doctor Thomas Willis is credited with the first clinical description of typhoid fever in 1959. He accurately described the stages, signs and symptoms of the fever, and advised treatment such as "bloodletting, vomiting and purging." Although his treatment methods left something to be desired, Willis' description of the disease was enough to help later researchers expand on the diagnosis and rule out diseases that mimicked typhoid.

Researchers

• Frenchman Pierre-Fidele Bretonneau accurately described the progression of the disease in 1819. Doctor Bretonneau reported that typhoid fever was transmitted through contact with those infected by researching a typhoid epidemic in France. Dr. William Wood Gerhard, himself once stricken with the disease, is responsible for differentiating typhoid from other gastrointestinal ailments and typhus fever in 1837. In 1880, German bacteriologist Karl Joseph Eberth found and identified the bacilli in a patient who had died from the disease.

Vaccines

• Dr. Almroth Edward Wright (England) researched blood coagulation and, in 1889, developed a typhoid vaccine that proved effective when administered to soldiers during World War I. A second vaccine developed by Dr. William Boog Leishman (Scotland) was also used during the war successfully.

Bloody Mary

• As Bretonneau realized, typhoid was passed through contaminated food and water, often from a carrier that showed no symptoms. The most popular figure in history associated with typhoid was Mary Mallon, a cook who carried the bacillus for the fever. She was forcibly hospitalized for three years in 1907 as doctors tried to rid her of the bacillus to no avail. After release, she continued outpatient treatment until she disappeared. Found five years later, she spent the rest of her life quarantined.