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

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No further references to the extensive literature of the recent pandemic seem necessary, since those cited above serve to illustrate the various points of view that exist. A similar diversity of opinion may be found in the reports from foreign sources.

It would appear that much of the divergence of opinion that has been formed has depended to a considerable extent upon the conditions under which cases have been observed. This is clearly brought out by contrasting the experience of Fantus^[39] dealing with private cases in civilian practice, where pneumonia was relatively uncommon, with that of others dealing only with cases in large hospitals, where those admitted have been in large part selected seriously ill patients with a high incidence of pneumonia, the milder cases comprising from 60 to 90 per cent of those attacked by influenza never reaching the hospital. Variations in opinion with respect to the bacteriology of the epidemic, especially in regard to B. influenzæ, would appear to be due for the most part to differences in bacteriologic technic, in some degree to differences in interpretation. Accumulating evidence can leave little doubt that B. influenzæ was at least extraordinarily and universally prevalent throughout the period of the epidemic and thereafter, and that earlier reports of failure to find it were due to the use of methods unsuitable for its detection and isolation.