Читать книгу Studies on Epidemic Influenza: Comprising Clinical and Laboratory Investigations онлайн

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“It can be readily understood that we were in no position to conduct extensive bacteriological examinations, but a culture taken from the posterior nares of one of us on October 10 with a guarded swab showed colonies of Pfeiffer’s bacillus and of micrococcus catarrhalis.”

This observation is so convincing, I have quoted it at length and in full.

The communicability of influenza has been observed by all, and the ease with which it passes from one individual to another noted. One observation made by us was of considerable interest. In a house where a patient lay sick with a severe attack of influenza for nearly three weeks several members of the household passed the door of the sick room a number of times daily, and yet they did not contract the disease. This is in marked contrast with the immediate contact between the two physicians and the young flying officer, who sat in the same railway carriage compartment for four hours. The same observation was made in the hospital among nurses in direct contact with patients. A large number of these contracted the disease, while those not immediately associated with influenza patients almost invariably escaped. This speaks strongly against the idea that the epidemic was a so-called “plague,” or that it passed without intermediate means through the air and pervaded all places.