By World War I, the rate of typhoid in American soldiers was 37 per 100,000.During the second world war, the United States army authorized the use of a trivalent vaccine – containing heat-inactivated Typhoid, Paratyphi A and Paratyphi B pathogens.In 1934, discovery of the Vi capsular antigen by Arthur Felix and Miss S. R. Margaret Pitt enabled development of the safer Vi Antigen vaccine – which is widely in use today. Arthur Felix and Margaret Pitt also isolated the strain Ty2, which became the parent strain of Ty21a, the strain used as a live-attenuated vaccine for typhoid fever today. Antibiotics and resistance
Chloramphenicol was isolated from Streptomyces by Dr. David Gotlieb during the 1940s. In 1948 American army doctors tested its efficacy in treating typhoid patients in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Individuals who received a full course of treatment cleared the infection, whereas patients given a lower dose had a relapse. Asymptomatic carriers continued to shed bacilli despite chloramphenicol treatment - only ill patients were improved with chloramphenicol. Resistance to chloramphenicol became frequent in Southeast Asia by the 1950s, and today chloramphenicol is only used as a last resort due to the high prevalence of resistance. Terminology
The disease has been referred to by various names, often associated with symptoms, such as gastric fever, enteric fever, abdominal typhus, infantile remittant fever, slow fever, nervous fever, pythogenic fever, drain fever and low fever. Notable people
Emperor Augustus of Rome (suspected based on historical record but not confirmed), survived.
Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary" - see history section, "carriers" for further details
Leland Stanford Jr., son of American tycoon and politician A. Leland Stanford and eponym of Leland Stanford Junior University, died of typhoid fever in 1884 at the age of 15. Three of Louis Pasteurs five children died of typhoid fever. Gerard Manley Hopkins, English poet, died of typhoid fever in 1889. Lizzie van Zyl, South African child inmate of the Bloemfontein concentration camp during the Second Boer War, died of typhoid fever in 1901. Dr HJH Tup Scott, captain of the 1886 Australian cricket team that toured England, died of typhoid in 1910. Arnold Bennett, English novelist, died in 1932 of typhoid, two months after drinking a glass of water in a Paris hotel to prove it was safe. Hakaru Hashimoto, Japanese medical scientist, died of typhoid fever in 1934. Outbreaks
Plague of Athens (suspected)
"Burning Fever" outbreak among indigenous Americans. Between 1607 and 1624, 85% of the population at the James River died from a typhoid epidemic. The World Health Organization estimates the death toll was over 6,000 during this time. Maidstone, Kent outbreak in 1897–1898: 1,847 patients were recorded to have typhoid fever. This outbreak is notable because it was the first time a typhoid vaccine was deployed during a civilian outbreak.