The causation of influenza, sometimes called by its French name 'la grippe' / reported by Henry B. Baker.

  • Michigan. State Board of Health.
Date:
[1891]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The causation of influenza, sometimes called by its French name 'la grippe' / reported by Henry B. Baker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    however, accept the fact that those diseases are propagated, the specific cause of each case being derived from a pre-existing case. 3. Diseases which, as a rule, are believed to enter the human body by way of the throat or air passages. According to the evidence which for many years, has been accumulating in the sickness statistics of Michigan, influenza belongs in the class of diseases concerning which the three foregoing propositions are true. Absolute proof of the truth of the proposition No. 1, relative to influenza, is given herewith in the Diagram No. 1, on page 10. Proposition No. 3 is so obvious concerning influenza that no further proof in required, and none is here offered. Concerning proposition No. 2, it would seem that the evidence is now sufiicient relative to influenza; but few people have had opportunity to study a summary of the evidences; and it may be that influenza should be included, with scarlet fever, among the specific diseases for which the spe- cific cause has not with certainty been isolated. This subject, however, is referred to further on. At this meeting, only a bare outline of the evi- dence was presented, partly because members of the Board were supposed to hold in mind much that was not mentioned. Dr. Baker referred to the fact that it is now considered established that, as a rule, inflammations are due to micro-organisms, that the cause of ordinary pus (matter as it is commonly called) is specific, that is, a living micro-organism—the staphylococcus, and streptococcus pyogenes; that all the bacteriologists who have reported results of examinations for micro-organisms in influ- enza have reported the finding of these pus-generating micro-organisms; as, for instance, Bikert, in Bonn {Deutsche Medicinische Wochenschrift, Jan. 23, 1890), in a bacteriological study of five cases of influenza, found the only species constantly present was the streptococcus pyogenes. While most of the investigators have assurtied that these common pus-generating micro-organisms could not be the specific cause of influenza, because they are so uniformly present, Bikert suggested that the streptococcus, in association with some unknown peculiar atmospheric condition, may cause the disease.* This conclusion by Bikert is the same as was reached in the paper read, by the secretary of this board, at the meeting of the American Medical Association in Nashville, Tenn., in May, 1890, but which paper is not yet published. In that paper it was shown that influenza is present in Michi- gan in every month of every year; its specific cause, if it have one, must, therefore, be a very common one, present in Michigan all the time. The streptococcus pyogenes is a well-known cause of infiammation, and it is such an ever-present specific cause as the circumstances of the case require. In the paper by the secretary of this board, referred to in a preceding paragraph, it was shown that throughout about all recorded epidemics of influenza in past times the chief coincident meteorological conditions had been cold winds, or winds from an unusual direction. It was shown that the great epidemic of 1890, which began in St. Petersburg, followed closely the occurence of northeast winds at a season of the year when the winds were usually from the south and west. The long-continued northeast winds at St. Petersburg came from the direction of the cold regions of northern Siberia. Previous to the preparation of the paper just mentioned, the sickness ♦American Lancet, April, 1890, p. 159.