History of Typhoid Fever

"Typhoid fever has harassed mankind since the beginning of civilization. In 1998, an article in the New England Journal of Medicine suggested that the death of Alexander the Great at the age of 32 on 13 June 323 CE was caused by typhoid rather than poison or malaria. Researchers at the University of Maryland's School of Medicine argued that Alexander's symptoms- sharp abdominal pain, chills, and steadily rising fever- matched the symptoms of typhoid fever. Historical accounts suggested that Alexander's body did not deteriorate for several days following his death. Although the tale was possibly exaggerated, the event could be explained by ascending paralysis, a complication of typhoid, which causes slow paralysis from the feet up. A body may seem dead as the paralysis develops before he actually died. Other scholars have suggested that West Nile Virus was the disease that killed Alexander.
Prince Albert, the Consort of Queen Victoria, contracted typhoid fever and died four weeks later in December 1861. During his illness, he experienced intermittent but increasingly more severe fevers that led to delirium, a worsening cough, and salmon-colored skin lesions on his torso. The son of Albert and Victoria, Edward, also died of typhoid.
Typhoid fever had always threatened densely population areas with inadequate sanitation. In the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America, outbreaks pf typhoid fever was a constant threat to survival. Between 1607 when the colony was founded and 1624, at least 6,000 settlers died from typhoid fever. By 1623, only 4,500 inhabited the settlement. During the Spanish American War in 1898, typhoid fever raged through the armies. 82% of all sick soldiers suffered from typhoid, which also accounted for 87% of total deaths from disease. During the South African War (1899-1902), the British lost more to typhoid (13,000 soldiers) than those that died due to battle (8,000 soldier).
The Salmonella typhi bacteria were first described by Karl Joseph Eberth, a German bacteriologist, in 1880. Eberth found the bacteria in the spleen and mesenteric lymph nodes of a patient who died of typhoid fever. Robert Koch had also observed and recorded the bacilli. In 1884, Georg Theodor August Gaffky, another German bacteriologist who worked under Robert Koch, confirmed the Salmonella typhi bacteria as the causal agent of typhoid. At first the bacterium was called Eberth Bacillus. In 1896, the British pathologist Sir Almroth Wright and his team developed the first vaccine of heat-denatured whole-cell typhoid bacilli. During World War I, British troops were immunized and largely escaped the disease."
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/bio-typhoid.htm