CLIMATE AND ITS RELATION TO ACUTE RESPIRATORY CONDITIONS.
(Excerpts from paper read at the meeting of the American Climatological and Clinical Association, at Atlantic City, N.J., June 17, 1920)
Following the last three years, 1917-18-19, during which time we have experienced a remarkable prevalence of acute respiratory diseases not previously met and studied to such an extent by this generation of observers and in reviewing many reports from all parts of the world, we frequently note reference as to the causation of epidemic bronchitis, influenza and pneumonia and their relation to certain meteorological conditions which, if not held responsible for them, are indicated as having a great influence upon the spread or sudden termination of these diseases. As refences are made by the most serious writers, it seems necessary for us as climatologists to study carefully every meteorological condition that may have any bearing on such a formidable disease as influenza and pneumonia.
What were the unusual weather conditions, if any, to account for this most serious bacterial attack upon the human race ? For instance, a medical writer in Spain states: ?After the subsidence of the epidemic of influenza in Spain last spring, the summer was extremely dry, the drought being worse than even the oldest inhabitants could remember, and the epidemic flared up again
seemed to yield to the extreme hot weather, suddenly spread throughout the whole of Spain.?
Another writer, from the Philippines, states that ?The disease raged in the islands for about six weeks, when a typhoon with torrential rain followed by strong winds swept away the last vestige of the disease.?
Baccarine is inclined to believe the germs causing it had their virulence suddenly enhanced by some mysterious influence, electric, atmospheric, or telluric. Another writer states ?The epidemic appeared after a very hot season had suddenly been succeeded by a very cold one and that perhaps the weather precipitated a large amount of other respiratory infections such as always become relevent at this season (autumn).?
This is answered by many other writers who state that this pandemic differs from that of 1890 and 1892 in that acute nasal catarrh and sinus involvement were conspicuous by their absence this year. It is also said that among the causes which contributed to the high incidence of influenza-pneumonia in the American Espeditionary Forces were working and sleeping in wet clothes and shoes, eating of food served cold, insufficient blankets for warm sleeping during the wet, cold period in northern France yet several exhaustive reports of the incidence of influenza-pneumonia among troops stationed in barracks and tents in this country show that the weather conditions when the epidemic struck were unsurpassed; no rain, not cloudy, fair and warm-the weather being all that one could wish for the troops occupying tents and that a long period of fine weather followed the onset of the pandemic. In letters sent out by a medical association for the prevention of disease, a slip was inclosed which reads: "Spanish influenza is undoubtedly due to lack of sunshine and fresh air, to dampness outdoors and in, and to getting wet feet." This is not quite as amusing as a special telegram to one of the leading Philadelphia papers dated Boston, October 7, which reads thus: "In connection with the influenza epidemic the directors of the "Mother" Christian Science Church here announce that the mind is a source of contagion and that elements can contaminate only as diseased images held before the thought and paraded before an excited imagination preliminary to having them expressed on the body through fear and apprehension." Another writer states "The numerous gases used on the battle fields of Europe with their highly poisonous properties, the liberation of large quantities of ground air high in carbon dioxide content due to trench digging and shell holes, the gasses from decomposing bodies of men and lower animals, and those set free by the destruction of cities and munition dumps during the last four years may have combined to form a gaseous compound with highly toxic properties probably due to rearrangement of molecules by the tremendous concussion produced by high explosives.?
With this idea in mind he states, ?I am going to advance the theory that the condition termed influenza is in reality a nonbacterial, noncontagious disease caused by the inhalation of small amounts of depressing, highly irritating, high density gas especially at night when the air is surcharged with moisture, more particularly near the surface of the earth." He also states,"The mode of transmission is undoubtedly through the agency of the atmosphere.?
The idea that some atmospheric influence or free-from-germ explanation of infectious and epidemics was promulgated by Wagner many years ago in his work on pathology under the title of "The Epidemic Constitution of Disease."
Dr. Onodera, of the Society of Internal Medicine of Japan, has laid stress on the meteorologic relation of the occurrence of influenza epidemics, the latter running parallel with the severe cold that returned at about 30 year intervals. There may possibly be some relation of the extreme cold periods and crowding.
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(Excerpts from paper read at the meeting of the American Climatological and Clinical Association, at Atlantic City, N.J., June 17, 1920)
Following the last three years, 1917-18-19, during which time we have experienced a remarkable prevalence of acute respiratory diseases not previously met and studied to such an extent by this generation of observers and in reviewing many reports from all parts of the world, we frequently note reference as to the causation of epidemic bronchitis, influenza and pneumonia and their relation to certain meteorological conditions which, if not held responsible for them, are indicated as having a great influence upon the spread or sudden termination of these diseases. As refences are made by the most serious writers, it seems necessary for us as climatologists to study carefully every meteorological condition that may have any bearing on such a formidable disease as influenza and pneumonia.
What were the unusual weather conditions, if any, to account for this most serious bacterial attack upon the human race ? For instance, a medical writer in Spain states: ?After the subsidence of the epidemic of influenza in Spain last spring, the summer was extremely dry, the drought being worse than even the oldest inhabitants could remember, and the epidemic flared up again
seemed to yield to the extreme hot weather, suddenly spread throughout the whole of Spain.?
Another writer, from the Philippines, states that ?The disease raged in the islands for about six weeks, when a typhoon with torrential rain followed by strong winds swept away the last vestige of the disease.?
Baccarine is inclined to believe the germs causing it had their virulence suddenly enhanced by some mysterious influence, electric, atmospheric, or telluric. Another writer states ?The epidemic appeared after a very hot season had suddenly been succeeded by a very cold one and that perhaps the weather precipitated a large amount of other respiratory infections such as always become relevent at this season (autumn).?
This is answered by many other writers who state that this pandemic differs from that of 1890 and 1892 in that acute nasal catarrh and sinus involvement were conspicuous by their absence this year. It is also said that among the causes which contributed to the high incidence of influenza-pneumonia in the American Espeditionary Forces were working and sleeping in wet clothes and shoes, eating of food served cold, insufficient blankets for warm sleeping during the wet, cold period in northern France yet several exhaustive reports of the incidence of influenza-pneumonia among troops stationed in barracks and tents in this country show that the weather conditions when the epidemic struck were unsurpassed; no rain, not cloudy, fair and warm-the weather being all that one could wish for the troops occupying tents and that a long period of fine weather followed the onset of the pandemic. In letters sent out by a medical association for the prevention of disease, a slip was inclosed which reads: "Spanish influenza is undoubtedly due to lack of sunshine and fresh air, to dampness outdoors and in, and to getting wet feet." This is not quite as amusing as a special telegram to one of the leading Philadelphia papers dated Boston, October 7, which reads thus: "In connection with the influenza epidemic the directors of the "Mother" Christian Science Church here announce that the mind is a source of contagion and that elements can contaminate only as diseased images held before the thought and paraded before an excited imagination preliminary to having them expressed on the body through fear and apprehension." Another writer states "The numerous gases used on the battle fields of Europe with their highly poisonous properties, the liberation of large quantities of ground air high in carbon dioxide content due to trench digging and shell holes, the gasses from decomposing bodies of men and lower animals, and those set free by the destruction of cities and munition dumps during the last four years may have combined to form a gaseous compound with highly toxic properties probably due to rearrangement of molecules by the tremendous concussion produced by high explosives.?
With this idea in mind he states, ?I am going to advance the theory that the condition termed influenza is in reality a nonbacterial, noncontagious disease caused by the inhalation of small amounts of depressing, highly irritating, high density gas especially at night when the air is surcharged with moisture, more particularly near the surface of the earth." He also states,"The mode of transmission is undoubtedly through the agency of the atmosphere.?
The idea that some atmospheric influence or free-from-germ explanation of infectious and epidemics was promulgated by Wagner many years ago in his work on pathology under the title of "The Epidemic Constitution of Disease."
Dr. Onodera, of the Society of Internal Medicine of Japan, has laid stress on the meteorologic relation of the occurrence of influenza epidemics, the latter running parallel with the severe cold that returned at about 30 year intervals. There may possibly be some relation of the extreme cold periods and crowding.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/...page=10&previous_hit=0&sort=relevance#results
