The courier-index., 1918-10-11


 the year 1646 and the chronicles of the early Plymouth colony record how a malign disease of the respira-. tory organs was carried into New England by cargo ship from valen- cia. Several Pilgrims died from it. 1 Following these firse seizures in 1864. intermittent epidemics occurred 1 in this country with reasonable ire | quency Medical books detail them as having taken place dozen times ! in the last two centuries.
 Between 1850 and 1898 there was Hull in the influenza outbreaks. In the latter year. however, came sud denly the widespread la grippe epi- demic, still within the memory of many of us. This epidemic, accord ing to bacteriologists, had it's origin 1 somewhere in the Orient, whence it
 found it's way into Russia and then
 into the rest of Europe and finally
 into the United States
 The name la grippe was applied by French physicians because of the
 swift and unexpected nature of the diseases attack. The epidemic, sta
 tistics show, lasted until 1893, though it was not so widespread as was commonly believed. To have la grip pc became a thing of fashion and doc tors are inclined to believe that many | persons feigned sickness through
 some foolish notion that it gave them
 a social superiority. This idea may | have risen from the fact that several
 royal families were afflicted.
 | It was during the epidemic of 18S9-1S93 that the greatest advances
 in the treatment of influenza were
 made A German scientist named
 Pfeiffer succeeded in isolating bac-
 illus to which was given the name | Pfeiffer's bacillus. Until a few years
 ago it was devoutly believed by phy-
 sicians to be the sole cause of influ-
 enza. 1--H-~ ts
 Spanish doctors are vehement in
 their denial that the disease which
 has already taken toll in the Unit ed States originated in their country. l The facts seem to bear them out.
 It is generally known that an influ- enza epidemic occurred during the summer of 1917 in nearly all of the
 south European countries, and in | the fall and winter of 1917-191S
 reached the western front and sent many "a soldier into a base hospital ] for brief respite. Among the sol | diers 1t took the name of three day | fever'' or the flu" the latter being an abridgement for influenza, which was deemed too highbrow and cum | bersome for trench use. AS early | as 1916 the disease was reported on the eaestern front by German phy- sicians. Its appearance in New York came late this summer.
 Bacteriologists of the United States are agreed that influenza has been carried here from some foreign coun- | try-though they are not prepared to say the country is Spain However, | they are more concerned in discover l ing the cause of the disease than it's place of origin. American physicians seem to be at loggerheads as to | whether or not the germ which is responsible for the epidemic is the same as the one Dr. Pfeiffer i'm prisoned under his microscope a quarter of a century ago.
 Surgeon General Rupert Blue of the United States Public Health service said recently: That the epi- demic of 1893 which swept a large part of Europe and this country was caused by very minute bacterium, commonly called Pfeiffer's bacillus, is undoubted Yet, on the other hand we have found fairly extensive outbreaks of an influenzalike disease which were certainly not due to this bacterium. Influenza-or seeming in- fluenza-is known to have been caus- ed by the pneumocci, the germ or lobar pneumonia.
 It is of great importance, Dr. Blue points out, to ascertain definitely whether the physicians of the coun- try have to deal with the Pfeiffer bacillus or with some other germ. Moreover" said the surgeon general, i've should know whether the out-s breaks of Spanish influenza in vari ous parts of the country, like New Orleans, Mobile, Boston and New York, are call due to the same kind of germ"
 To this effect Dr. Blue few days ago requested Mai Richard M. Pearce. chairman of the division of medicine and the national research council. to use the laboratories