Influenza : $b An epidemiologic studyVaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
History
Influenza : $b An epidemiologic study
Vaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
Influenza
MacNeal has observed similar conditions in the American Expeditionary
Forces in France in 1917:
“The American troops in France in 1917 began to show, as early as
October, 1917, a very considerable rise in the influenza morbidity. The
data available in the office of the Chief Surgeon, A. E. F., show an
influenza morbidity per 100,000 of 321 in July, 438 in August, and 404
in September, rising to 1,050 in October, 1,980 in November, and 2,480
in December, 1917, in which month the total number of new cases of
influenza reported was 3,520. That a considerable proportion of these
cases were actual infections with the bacillus of Pfeiffer is proven by
the necropsy findings in fatal cases of bronchitis and bronchopneumonia,
especially those performed by Major H. E. Robertson at Army Laboratory
No. 1, Neufchateau, in November and December, 1917, and January, 1918.
In these cases the bacillus of Pfeiffer was found in the scattered
patches of lung involved in the bronchopneumonia and also with great
frequency in the cranial sinuses. These necropsy findings were, at the
time, recognized as essentially new for young adult Americans, and, in a
discussion at Army Laboratory No. 1, during December, 1917, they were
considered as being of possible important significance for the future
morbidity of American soldiers in France. In the British Army in France
there is definite evidence of epidemics showing the same pathologic
condition, during the winter of 1916–17, and at Aldershot in September,
1917. There can be little, if any doubt that this disease was
essentially the same which attacked the American soldiers late in 1917.”
Schittenhelm and Schlecht have reported that a disease was studied among
the German troops on the Eastern front which resembled greatly the
influenza. It occurred from the beginning of August to the middle of
October, 1917. It attacked simultaneously and in epidemic form units and
divisions very widely separated over a large territory. It was
characterized clinically by a very sudden onset, in the greater number
of cases with chill, headache, pain in the extremities, sometimes
thoracic pain and cough. The fever lasted seven to nine days. The spleen
was enlarged in 11 per cent. of the individuals. There was diarrhea in
12 per cent., frequently conjunctivitis, and quite often a
scarlatiniform rash. Bacteriologic examination of the blood was
negative. There was usually leucopenia. No treatment seemed especially
efficacious. Aspirin gave the best results. The authors call attention
to the close similarity to influenza and also suggest that it might have
been due to transmission by insects as in pappataci fever or in dengue.
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