Influenza : $b An epidemiologic studyVaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
History
Influenza : $b An epidemiologic study
Vaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
Influenza
5. Our own theory does not explain the autumn recurrence in 1918 in
England, following that of May, June and July. We have traced the
original spread to England and have left it at that point. We have again
taken it up in the autumn when it became severe, and was returned to the
United States. The interval of quiescence in England and elsewhere may
need further explanation. Two alternative hypotheses suggest themselves:
First, that the autumn recrudescence is entirely comparable to later
ones, and is but a manifestation of the characteristic feature of
recurrence in influenza. Had the autumn epidemic been mild and had it
not so overshadowed all others, we would have classified it with those
of early 1919 as being merely recrudescences of the summer spread.
Evidence, particularly in favor of this, is the report of Greenwood
previously mentioned which shows that in England the autumn spread
partook of the nature of a secondary type of epidemic, as compared with
the primary type in the summer.
The second hypothesis is that the occurrence in the summer in England of
an epidemic due to a virus imported from America or France or China,
with its consequent increase in morbidity, so enhanced the virulence of
a local endemic British virus that the latter produced the autumn
epidemic. We see no necessity for complicating the question by the
assumption of this second hypothesis.
6. Whether or not there is a regular periodicity of a definite number of
weeks in the case of influenza, the fact remains beyond cavil that one
of the dominant characteristics of epidemic influenza is its recurrence
at intervals. The evidence is ample that the disease is distributed
throughout many countries in interepidemic times and that intermittent
outbreaks of large or small extent occur.
The most striking phenomenon is the fact that in March of 1918 influenza
is reported as having been present in China, in the United States and in
France. It is scarcely possible that the disease in its epidemic form
could have been carried from any one of these three points to the other
two in the remarkably short time between the onset of the three
outbreaks. We are faced with the phenomenon of a simultaneous exaltation
of the influenza virus in three remotely separated countries of the
world. This one fact more than any other indicates that the fluctuation
in virulence is dependent upon some factor intrinsic in the virus itself
and not upon environmental factors.
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