Influenza : $b An epidemiologic studyVaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
History
Influenza : $b An epidemiologic study
Vaughan, Warren T. (Warren Taylor)
Influenza
The next report of influenza in the United States was from the
Oglethorpe camps, beginning about March, 18, 1918. Within two weeks
every organization in Camp Forrest and the Reserve Officers Training
Camp was affected. After about three weeks the epidemic subsided
rapidly. Fourteen hundred and sixty-eight cases were sent to the
hospital out of a total strength of 28,586. It is estimated that 2,900
cases had occurred. The clinical symptomatology and the epidemic
characteristics were described in detail.
On March 28th the author had occasion to observe a similar epidemic at
Camp Sevier, South Carolina, which appears to have attacked a smaller
proportion of the troops in camp, but which showed the same
epidemiologic picture. A note in the Public Health Reports states that
on March 30, 1918, the occurrence of eighteen cases of influenza, of
severe type, from which three deaths resulted, was reported at Haskell,
Kansas. This is the earliest report we have been able to find concerning
the disease in civil communities. That for Chicago was practically
contemporary. The Commissioner of Health of Chicago states in his
special report on the autumn epidemic, that in March, 1918, distinct
epidemics resembling influenza were observed in certain portions of that
city.
According to Public Health Reports, fevers of an undetermined nature
were reported during April and May at various points from Norfolk to
Louisiana. “An examination of the records and reports of the physicians
who had treated these cases leads to the belief that these fevers were
mainly influenza of mild type.” It is possible, however, that all cases
reported were not of the same disease, and in one locality in Louisiana
dengue may have occurred.
Fleisher states that during the latter part of March and early part of
April, 1918, there occurred at Camp Wadsworth an epidemic of measles and
practically concomitant with it an epidemic form of bronchopneumonia
associated with empyema. During this time there were some 200 cases of
measles and twenty-one cases of bronchopneumonia or empyema in which a
hemolytic streptococcus was the causative agent. He makes no mention of
any epidemic of influenza either in mild or severe form, occurring at
this period.
Forbes and Snyder reported that during the month of April, 1918, a
highly contagious, but comparatively mild infection of the respiratory
tract was epidemic in Camp Hancock. Several thousand men in the command
were infected, but relatively few were ill enough to be sent to the
hospital. The only fatal case occurred early in the epidemic, and it was
the observations made in this case which prompted the study made by
Forbes and Snyder.
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