{Typhoid fever}, a disease formerly confounded with typhus,
but essentially different from the latter. It is
characterized by fever, lasting usually three or more
weeks, diarrh[ae]a with evacuations resembling pea soup in
appearance, and prostration and muscular debility,
gradually increasing and often becoming profound at the
acme of the disease. Its local lesions are a scanty
eruption of spots, resembling flea bites, on the belly,
enlargement of the spleen, and ulceration of the
intestines over the areas occupied by Peyer's glands. The
virus, or contagion, of this fever is supposed to be a
microscopic vegetable organism, or bacterium. Called also
{enteric fever}. See {Peyer's glands}.