Typhoid fever Meaning, Definition & Usage

Definitions

1. a disease formerly confounded with typhus, but essentially different from the latter. It is characterized by fever, lasting usually three or more weeks, diarrhæa with evacuations resembling pea soup in appearance, and prostration and muscular debility, gradually increasing and often becoming profound at the acme of the disease. Its local lesions are a scanty eruption of spots, resembling flea bites, on the belly, enlargement of the spleen, and ulceration of the intestines over the areas occupied by Peyer's glands. The virus, or contagion, of this fever is supposed to be a microscopic vegetable organism, or bacterium. Called also enteric fever. See Peyer's glands. caused by the gram-negative bacillus, Salmonella typhosa (syn. Salmonella typhi), also called typhoid bacillus. The organism is often ingested by drinking contaminated water.