Читать книгу Studies on Epidemic Influenza: Comprising Clinical and Laboratory Investigations онлайн
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The clinical observations which are contained in this report were made at the Mercy Hospital. This institution set aside upward of 100 beds for the care of the overflow which could not be accommodated at the Military Hospital. It is unfortunate that the clinical observations and the laboratory findings contained in this report were not made upon the same cases. With the number of cases suddenly thrust upon the medical staff of the army, it was not possible for them to devote detailed attention to clinical investigation. Furthermore, during the progress of the epidemic these medical officers were transferred to new posts, so that it was impossible to obtain a summary of the clinical findings at the Military Hospital by any of the officers who had but recently been detailed to the work. We were fortunate, however, that the clinical investigations were carried out on a similar group of cases to those studied by the laboratory, and it might be said that their clinical findings on the patients housed at the Mercy Hospital are parallel with those observed in other institutions. Necessarily the researches carried out during such an epidemic were intensive, and all the workers in the various branches feel that if they had to live through another such plague they would be much better prepared to approach their problem. During the heat of such investigations valuable time is often lost in perfecting methods of technique, and one sorrowfully finds oneself without available material when the technical work has been accomplished but the epidemic has passed by. In the studies in bacteriology we were fortunate in having some of the technical difficulties for the isolation of the B. influenzæ previously solved. It may be that this in part explains the broad success which Dr. Holman has had in isolating the B. influenzæ from so many cases. In other fields the road was less broken, and it was not until late in the course of the epidemic that results were obtained in the investigation which seemed to point to valuable leads.