The Filth Disease: Typhoid Fever and the Practices of Epidemiology in Victorian England - Paperbackby Jacob Steere Williams (Author) Shows how the investigation of local outbreaks of typhoid fever in Victorian Britain led to the emergence of the modern discipline of epidemiology as the leading science of public health Typhoid fever is a food and water borne infectious disease that was insidious and omnipresent in Victorian Britain. It was one of the most prolific diseases of the Industrial Revolution. There was a palpable public anxiety aboutthe