Studies on Epidemic Influenza: Comprising Clinical and Laboratory InvestigationsUniversity of Pittsburgh. School of Medicine
History
Studies on Epidemic Influenza: Comprising Clinical and Laboratory Investigations
University of Pittsburgh. School of Medicine
Influenza; Influenza Epidemic, 1918-1919
In as much as our observations are confined to a particular group of
cases and the study of these was undertaken during the five weeks of the
acute epidemic, these results are not to be compared with the collected
statistics on influenza as they shall be made over a period beginning
with the onset of the epidemic and ending with the last vestiges
remaining after months or it may be years of time. Our observations are
to be considered only in the light of the events taking place during the
height of an epidemic wave. In as much as influenza presents itself
during an epidemic in different forms, we shall again mainly limit the
report upon our investigations of those cases having respiratory
lesions. Our acute observations were made upon the tissues of those who
had died of this disease. It is impossible, or nearly so, to fully study
the tissues of those with lesser lesions and who recover. Hence, if we
divide the influenza cases into those (1) without pulmonary lesions and
(2) those with pulmonary lesions, we must state that all of our cases
coming to autopsy fall in the second group. It is true that one of these
having pulmonary lesions was not brought to his fatal termination by
them but by a septicæmia arising in the middle ear. He had distinct
lesions in his lungs. In other words, our autopsy material represents
epidemic influenza in which the lung was definitely involved in an
inflammatory state. In all but one of these the pulmonary lesion was the
cause of death.
No doubt, if opportunity had presented itself to follow a large epidemic
through months of its progress, during which late complications in
various portions of the body would make their appearance, our analysis
would give a different picture and the pulmonary factor for the fatal
termination would not be in such prominence.
Of the first group, those cases of epidemic influenza not showing
pulmonary lesions, we will have very little to say, in as much as the
pathological investigations of them is impossible, or nearly so, during
the height of the disease.
Such cases apparently do not die at this period. I am willing to admit
that individuals without pulmonary involvement may succumb, but I
question whether their death has been due to the result of the
influenzal lesions, be it in nose, pharynx, larynx or trachea, or be it
in the intestine, but rather that the fatal termination occurred later
in the course of this complex disease, when distant vital organs became
involved or incapacitated in a toxemia or secondary bacterial invasion.
We must clearly distinguish these cases from the clear-cut ones of
epidemic influenza, looking upon the new circumstances as complications
aside from the original disease. Such, for example, is the case we have
mentioned where a fatal streptococcus bacteriæmia followed in the wake
of an otitis media. In our experience we have not had a fatal case of
the acute epidemic disease in which the lung was not involved.
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