The pathology of influenzaWinternitz, M. C. (Milton C.)
Science
The pathology of influenza
Winternitz, M. C. (Milton C.)
Influenza
FIG. XI. AUTOPSY NO. 140. ILLUSTRATES A LATE CHANGE IN THE BRONCHIOLE;
THE EXUDATE IS BEING ORGANIZED AND THE EPITHELIAL LINING IS
PROLIFERATING AND HAS INVADED THE SURROUNDING LUNG TISSUE. COMPARE
FIGURES XLVIII AND XLIX.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. XII. AUTOPSY NO. 209. A SMALL BRONCHIECTATIC CAVITY FILLED WITH
PUS. THE GROSS APPEARANCE IS ILLUSTRATED IN FIGURE L.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. XIII. AUTOPSY NO. 96. RIGHT LUNG. A WATER COLOR DRAWING OF A
GROSS LUNG IN THE ACUTE STAGE. NOTE THE SIZE OF THE LUNG, THE
HEMORRHAGES ON THE PLEURAL SURFACE, AND THE BLUE AREAS OF
CONSOLIDATION.
]
Clinically, there is reason to believe that the disease may begin with a
period of general malaise, during which the respiratory symptoms may be
more or less severe. In the fulminating cases, the malaise may be
associated from the beginning, not only with a tracheobronchitis, but
also with pulmonary involvement. In less severe types the malaise may be
accompanied only by tracheobronchitis, and may present no symptoms
referable to the pulmonary parenchyma; there may follow or not, a
definite period of clinical improvement, after which pneumonic
involvement becomes evident. However, even where a fulminating type of
the disease is not associated with clinical evidence of pulmonary
involvement, the post-mortem examination may show extensive change in
the lung parenchyma (110).
Whether this grouping of the disease is correct or is based upon a
fallacious deduction from more or less satisfactory clinical histories,
is open to question; and a decision may be reached from comparison of
the opinions based upon carefully observed cases treated in different
institutions. From the report of the epidemic at the Johns Hopkins
Hospital (Bloomfield and Harrop (14)), where two hundred sixty-eight
cases were studied in which the complication of pneumonia was uncommon
as compared with cases in other hospitals—the New Haven Hospital, for
instance—and where the percentage of the deaths was low, the conclusion
was reached that the disease is primarily a general one and that the
pulmonary involvement is secondary, just as in an exanthem, like
measles. By way of comparison, at the New Haven Hospital, where more
than eleven hundred patients with influenza were observed, the type of
disease described by Bloomfield and Harrop was relatively rare. Of
course, there were cases of that type where general malaise, with or
without respiratory symptoms, was followed by a period—usually of from
two to three days—of definite improvement in the symptoms; and later
extensive and serious pulmonary complications ensued. However, in
another group, largely composed of individuals who entered the hospital
seriously ill, the histories indicate an acute onset resembling that of
lobar pneumonia and with early manifestations of pulmonary involvement
(2, 17, 52, 145). This discrepancy, probably, may be explained in part
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