http://influenza.sph.unimelb.edu.au/MOH_TOC.php
R. Pfeiffer discovered this bacteria in 1892 and for many years, it was thought to be the primary cause of the influenza pandemic of that period and of 1918-19.
Now known as Haemophilus influenzae: a small, nonmotile Gram-negative bacterium in the family Pasteurellaceae. H. influenzae is highly adapted to its human host. It is present in the nasopharynx of approximately 75 percent of healthy children and adults. It is rarely encountered in the oral cavity and it has not been detected in any other animal species. It is usually the non encapsulated strains that are harbored as normal flora, but a minority of healthy individuals (3-7 percent) intermittently harbor H. influenzae type b (Hib) encapsulated strains in the upper respiratory tract. Pharyngeal carriage of Hib is important in the transmission of the bacterium. The success of current vaccination programs against Hib is due in part to the effect of vaccination on decreasing carriage of the organism.
http://www.bact.wisc.edu/themicrobialworld/haemophilus.html
Through much of this chapter, the author discusses evidence for and against Pfeiffer's as the primary cause. He also writes about a number of experiments performed to infect people and animals and of evidence of viruses so small they have the ability to pass through filters that catch most all known bacteria.
He says: "Indeed, all who have experimented with the toxin of Pfeiffer's bacillus, which appears to be a soluble one, bear witness to its selective h?morrhagic action upon the lungs. It seems probable that we must regard Pfeiffer's bacillus as the chief cause of the h?morrhagic oedema and the localised h?morrhagic areas in the lungs which have been so conspicuous a feature of the late epidemic."
Other secondary infections found and opinions of importance:
* streptococcus viridans: very prominent but unlikely played a role of much importance.
* streptococcus hoemolyticus:the presence of this streptococcus in the pulmonary lesions has been a distinguishing feature of the epidemic, especially in the autumn when the disease exhibited its highest fatality, and it was found in the worst cases. It was responsible, in conjunction with Pfeiffer's bacillus, for the hemorrhagic lesions in the lungs, and it was more frequently found than Pfeiffer's bacillus in the h?morrhagic pleurisies and empyemata which were of common occurrence.
* pneumoeoccus: does not appear, from most reports, to have played such an important part, as a secondary infection, as either of the preceding.
* Staphylococci were noted by Tytler and his colleagues at No. 3 Canadian General Hospital in France, as the most abundant organisms in the bronchi after Pfeiffer's bacillus.
* The meningococcus was noted in a certain number of cases in this country, and notably in a group of cases in Scotland and in cases landed from American transports at Southampton.
* terminal septicaemias: it is a fair conclusion that they represent an overflow into the blood from the pulmonary lesions rather than a primary septic?mia.
Some of his thoughts on secondary infections:
That is to say, the secondary invasion may be a different one in two separate cases of the same disease, different in two different localities during the same epidemic, different, on the whole, in different epidemics. Once such a secondary invader has achieved success, it tends to become exalted in virulence by the ordinary mechanism of animal passage and, by repetition of the process, still further exaltation of virulence may be brought about till it can attack healthy persons.
There is even reason for the belief that the secondary infecting agents may, under favourable conditions, go on spreading in epidemic fashion, after the primary infecting cause has disappeared. In the opinion of Macallum, the pneumonias which devastated some of the military camps in the United States began as complications of epidemic measles, but later spread as epidemic pneumonias after the measles had ceased.
It is thus clear that the phenomena presented by the recent pandemic of influenza should be regarded from a double point of view; the outbreak of influenza, per se, is not necessarily the same thing as the outbreaks of respiratory complications which accompanied it. There were, so to speak,epidemics within the epidemic. It is precisely such considerations as these that render it so extremely difficult to determine the position of Pfeiffer's bacillus in relation to the outbreak as a whole.
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I think someone is finally studying historical docs :applause:
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77324&highlight=bacteria+1918
R. Pfeiffer discovered this bacteria in 1892 and for many years, it was thought to be the primary cause of the influenza pandemic of that period and of 1918-19.
Now known as Haemophilus influenzae: a small, nonmotile Gram-negative bacterium in the family Pasteurellaceae. H. influenzae is highly adapted to its human host. It is present in the nasopharynx of approximately 75 percent of healthy children and adults. It is rarely encountered in the oral cavity and it has not been detected in any other animal species. It is usually the non encapsulated strains that are harbored as normal flora, but a minority of healthy individuals (3-7 percent) intermittently harbor H. influenzae type b (Hib) encapsulated strains in the upper respiratory tract. Pharyngeal carriage of Hib is important in the transmission of the bacterium. The success of current vaccination programs against Hib is due in part to the effect of vaccination on decreasing carriage of the organism.
http://www.bact.wisc.edu/themicrobialworld/haemophilus.html
Through much of this chapter, the author discusses evidence for and against Pfeiffer's as the primary cause. He also writes about a number of experiments performed to infect people and animals and of evidence of viruses so small they have the ability to pass through filters that catch most all known bacteria.
He says: "Indeed, all who have experimented with the toxin of Pfeiffer's bacillus, which appears to be a soluble one, bear witness to its selective h?morrhagic action upon the lungs. It seems probable that we must regard Pfeiffer's bacillus as the chief cause of the h?morrhagic oedema and the localised h?morrhagic areas in the lungs which have been so conspicuous a feature of the late epidemic."
Other secondary infections found and opinions of importance:
* streptococcus viridans: very prominent but unlikely played a role of much importance.
* streptococcus hoemolyticus:the presence of this streptococcus in the pulmonary lesions has been a distinguishing feature of the epidemic, especially in the autumn when the disease exhibited its highest fatality, and it was found in the worst cases. It was responsible, in conjunction with Pfeiffer's bacillus, for the hemorrhagic lesions in the lungs, and it was more frequently found than Pfeiffer's bacillus in the h?morrhagic pleurisies and empyemata which were of common occurrence.
* pneumoeoccus: does not appear, from most reports, to have played such an important part, as a secondary infection, as either of the preceding.
* Staphylococci were noted by Tytler and his colleagues at No. 3 Canadian General Hospital in France, as the most abundant organisms in the bronchi after Pfeiffer's bacillus.
* The meningococcus was noted in a certain number of cases in this country, and notably in a group of cases in Scotland and in cases landed from American transports at Southampton.
* terminal septicaemias: it is a fair conclusion that they represent an overflow into the blood from the pulmonary lesions rather than a primary septic?mia.
Some of his thoughts on secondary infections:
That is to say, the secondary invasion may be a different one in two separate cases of the same disease, different in two different localities during the same epidemic, different, on the whole, in different epidemics. Once such a secondary invader has achieved success, it tends to become exalted in virulence by the ordinary mechanism of animal passage and, by repetition of the process, still further exaltation of virulence may be brought about till it can attack healthy persons.
There is even reason for the belief that the secondary infecting agents may, under favourable conditions, go on spreading in epidemic fashion, after the primary infecting cause has disappeared. In the opinion of Macallum, the pneumonias which devastated some of the military camps in the United States began as complications of epidemic measles, but later spread as epidemic pneumonias after the measles had ceased.
It is thus clear that the phenomena presented by the recent pandemic of influenza should be regarded from a double point of view; the outbreak of influenza, per se, is not necessarily the same thing as the outbreaks of respiratory complications which accompanied it. There were, so to speak,epidemics within the epidemic. It is precisely such considerations as these that render it so extremely difficult to determine the position of Pfeiffer's bacillus in relation to the outbreak as a whole.
----------------------------------------------------------------
I think someone is finally studying historical docs :applause:
http://www.flutrackers.com/forum/showthread.php?t=77324&highlight=bacteria+1918