Читать книгу Epidemic Respiratory Disease. The pneumonias and other infections of the repiratory tract accompanying influenza and measles онлайн

28 страница из 67

ssss1

The bacteriologic studies in cases of influenza described in this report fully support Pfeiffer’s claim that B. influenzæ is invariably present in the disease. It is particularly important to note that these results were obtained in early uncomplicated cases of influenza and are not dependent upon cultures made from cases complicated by pneumonia or obtained at autopsy. In view of this fact the tendency so apparent in much of the recent literature to relegate B. influenzæ to a place of secondary or minor importance in the disease seems hardly justifiable. It would seem that this tendency is largely dependent upon three factors: first, the failure of many to find B. influenzæ either during life or at autopsy in any considerable proportion of cases; second, the frequent failure to draw a clear distinction between influenza itself and the pneumonia to which it predisposes with a consequent overemphasis upon autopsy bacteriology where a considerable variety of secondary organisms have attracted particular attention; and third, an incorrect interpretation of the undoubtedly large number of B. influenzæ carriers found among normal individuals and those with other diseases during the period of the epidemic and to less extent in interepidemic times.