Twenty five years before Salmonella typhosa was identified as the pathogenic agent in typhoid fever, country practitioner William Budd, by inductive reasoning, had clearly defined the epidemiology of one of the great scourges in modern day medicine. Although the recommendations of Budd were strenuously opposed by some, when accepted and practiced, they provided an effective control of the contagion. William was born in 1811 in North Tawton, Devonshire, into a family of physicians of great talent; he studied medicine in London, Edinburgh, and Paris (four years), and survived a bout of typhoid fever, the disease that commanded his great interest throughout his medical career. In 1838, the University of Edinburgh conferred the doctorate degree on Budd, as well as a gold medal for an essay on acute rheumatism.1 Not long after, while on duty as a naval surgeon, he was stricken with typhoid fever from which he almost died. He