Research

Administrative History

The State Sanitary Code Required the Department to identify, register, and periodically check the medical status of chronic typhoid fever carriers, individuals whose digestive wastes continually or intermittently contained Salmonella Typhi bacteria one year after recovery from the disease or without having contracted the disease.

The district health officer contacted each carrier quarterly to arrange for laboratory testing for the presence of the bacteria and to be sure that the carrier's sanitary practices conformed to the Code's requirements. The health officer then forwarded the information to the Bureau of Epidemiology and Communicable Disease Control. The Department provided financial aid to carriers forced into unemployment because they would no longer work at food-handling jobs. It also subsidized gall bladder and bile duct drainage and ball bladder removal for fecal carriers who wanted to end their carrier status.