All pediatrists are familiar with the general course, symptoms and complications of typhoid fever in infants and children when the diet has been limited in accordance with the older ideas of the effect of fever on the digestive capacity. In this society studies of typhoid have been recently reported by Drs. Hand and Gittings, by Drs. Koplik and Heiman and by Dr. Griffith.
One of the main features of typhoid fever has always been the marked emaciation, and closely related to the great loss in weight were the lowered resistance to complications and to relapses and the tendency to toxemic nervous symptoms.
The loss of weight in typhoid, as in starvation and in other fevers obeys the general law that the carbohydrate glycogen stored in the body is at first utilized, and after this the fat and the protein. A characteristic feature of the metabolism of prolonged high fever is