ABSTRACT
Typhus is an acute fever and though the parasite which causes it has not yet been discovered, the carrier has been proved to be the human body louse. Until the 19th century the diagnosis of typhus was confused with that of typhoid and of relapsing or recurrent fever. The distinction between typhus and typhoid after a long series of researches, beginning in the early 18th century, was at last firmly established by still in 1837. Relapsing or recurrent fever was only established as a separate disease in 1843; before that date it was believed to be a mild form of typhus; a so-called mild form of typhus fever, probably relapsing fever was very prevalent in England during the epidemic of 1826-1827. The Manchester House of Recovery was not merely a fever hospital, it was an institution for the prevention of fever.
