Influenza : $b An epidemiologic studyVaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
History
Influenza : $b An epidemiologic study
Vaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
Influenza
Dopter reports recurrent epidemics of influenza in a French Army
Division in 1918. The division, of which he was surgeon, was one of the
first to contract la grippe at the time of its first appearance in the
zone of the armies at the end of April, 1918. At this time nearly the
entire body of infantry troops was attacked. The disease was mild, and
without complications. The regiment of artillery escaped nearly
entirely. This epidemic subsided very rapidly, and by the end of May it
had entirely disappeared. Early in August a group of heavy artillery was
attached to the division, bringing influenza with it. Then a few cases
appeared in the regiment of light artillery which had hitherto escaped.
By the end of August all three groups of this regiment had been
attacked. In this second epidemic the men who had come through the first
unattacked were very severely ill in the second.
With rare exceptions those sick in the first did not contract it again.
Dopter notes that in the battery the most severely affected in August,
of which the effectives were reduced almost to none, only those men were
considered well enough for duty who had had influenza in the first
period. They escaped the second in spite of the close contact with their
comrades. The infantry regiments, which were in close association with
the artillery, remained unaffected.
Finally, toward the middle of September new troops were attached to the
division, in view of an imminent attack by the enemy. These troops,
coming from neighboring and distant formations were suffering at the
time from grip, and continued to have the disease in the new sector.
Again, those attacked in May passed without damage through this new
epidemic. Among them there were only rare isolated mild cases. The
recurrences made only 1.6 per cent. of the total incidence.
Opie and his associates found that at Camp Funston after the first wave
of influenza in March and April, 1918, the succeeding waves usually
affected only new recruits, who had not been in camp during previous
waves.
In Calcutta influenza appeared as an epidemic in July, 1918, and in
November, 1918. During the first quarter of 1919, at Calcutta as
elsewhere, many cases were still recurring. Malone investigated the
incidence of the disease in three institutions of Calcutta: He found
that in the Gourepore Jute Mills where the population was practically
stationary, those individuals who were attacked in July, 1918, passed
through two later epidemics, in December, 1918, and February, 1919,
without contracting the disease a second time, in spite of intimate
contact with infected persons. The same was true according to Malone in
the Alipore Central Jail and the Presidency Jail in Calcutta. He
believes that his evidence strongly suggests an immunity lasting for at
least nine months.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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