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

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Influenza in epidemic form made its appearance in the army camps of the United States during March, 1918. The symptomatology of the disease associated with its peculiar epidemiology as seen at Camp Funston make its recognition unquestionable. The disease had doubtless been present in this camp since its establishment in September, 1917, but did not assume epidemic proportions until the spring of 1919.

Pneumonia followed the epidemics of influenza which occurred in the spring of 1918 and exhibited characters similar to those of the pneumonias which followed the pandemic of September and October, 1918. In both instances the height of the outbreak of pneumonia has been one week after the maximum incidence of influenza.

Influenza became epidemic in Spain about the middle of May and in other countries received the name “Spanish influenza” which is not more applicable than the designation “Russian influenza” often applied to the disease during the pandemic of 1889–90.

The studies of MacNeal^[7] have shown that the first epidemic of influenza in the American Expeditionary Force in France occurred about April 15, 1918, at a rest camp near Bordeaux, reached its height on April 22 and ceased May 5. The disease was of a mild character with few complications. Localized epidemics were reported from various camps and hospitals during May and June, when the disease, MacNeal states, had become widespread in all sections of the American Expeditionary Force in France and in the French and British armies as well. Influenza had become epidemic in the Italian navy in the first two weeks of May. The belief that the disease was introduced from America, the author thinks, is “probably completely disproved by the fact that the epidemic was subsequently introduced into America in August and September and found there a most fertile soil for its spread.” This view is disproved by the demonstration that influenza had appeared as scattered epidemics in the army camps in March, 1918. There is little reason to doubt that influenza in the American Expeditionary Force was brought from America.