Relationship between "purulent bronchitis" in military populations in Europe prior to 1918 and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic

[tetano]

Influenza Other Respi Viruses. 2011 Nov 27. doi: 10.1111/j.1750-2659.2011.00309.x. [Epub ahead of print]
Relationship between "purulent bronchitis" in military populations in Europe prior to 1918 and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic.
Dennis Shanks G, Mackenzie A, Waller M, Brundage JF.
Source

Australian Army Malaria Institute, Enoggera, QLD, Australia. School of Population Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia. Queensland Institute for Medical Research, Brisbane, QLD, Australia. Centre for Military and Veteran's Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia. Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, Silver Spring, MD, USA.
Abstract

Please cite this paper as: Shanks et al. Relationship between "purulent bronchitis" in military populations in Europe prior to 1918 and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-2659.2011.00309.x

Purulent bronchitis was a distinctive and apparently new lethal respiratory infection in British and American soldiers during the First World War. Mortality records suggest that purulent bronchitis caused localized outbreaks in the midst of a broad epidemic wave of lethal respiratory illness in 1916-1917. Probable purulent bronchitis deaths in the Australian Army showed an epidemic wave that moved from France to England. Purulent bronchitis may have been the clinical expression of infection with a novel influenza virus which also could have been a direct precursor of the 1918 pandemic strain.

? 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses.

PMID:
22118532
[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22118532

 

[Emily]

Re: Relationship between "purulent bronchitis" in military populations in Europe prior to 1918 and the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic

I wonder if chemical warfare might have played a part in the lung problem clusters.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/gas.htm

Considered uncivilised prior to World War One, the development and use of poison gas was necessitated by the requirement of wartime armies to find new ways of overcoming the stalemate of unexpected trench warfare....

Also military tobacco usage was skyrocketing then.

http://www.aafp.org/afp/1998/0315/p1270.html

Bronchitis can have causes other than infection. Bronchial wall inflammation can occur in asthma or can be secondary to mucosal injury in an acute event, such as smoke or chemical fume inhalation. This inflammation can also result from chronic toxic exposure, such as cigarette smoking. It is important to realize that when underlying inflammation is present, such as in asthmatics or smokers, infective agents are likely to cause more severe cough and wheezing.

http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/tobacco/history.htm

War & Cigarettes: A Deadly Combo
The use of cigarette exploded during World War I (1914-1918), where cigarettes were called the "soldier's smoke".

http://healthliteracy.worlded.org/docs/tobacco/Unit1/2history_of.html

They were selling their cigarettes mainly to men. Everything changed during World War I (1914-18) and World War II (1939-45). Soldiers overseas were given free cigarettes every day.