BACTERIOLOGY OF WHOOPING-COUGH 33 



It is perhaps worth while at this time to call attention to the fact 

 already noted by Jochmann, that whatever may be said in favor of 

 the influenza bacillus as the cause of influenza, practically the same 

 thing may be said in favor of the organism isolated from the cases 

 of pertussis as the cause of that disease. The constant occurrence 

 of the organism at the apparent seat of disease in practically all 

 uncomplicated cases, the parallelism between the general course of 

 the disease and the relative abundance of the organisms, the presence 

 of the organisms in the lungs and various secretions in postmortems, 

 the low pathogenicity of the organism for animals all these hold 

 true for one equally as well as for the other. The medical world, 

 with few exceptions, has come to recognize the influenza organism 

 as specific for this disease, but it surely is not yet ready to accept the 

 cause of whooping-cough as settled. This fact may be interpreted 

 in two ways; it may be used to indicate upon how insecure a founda- 

 tion the specificity of the influenza bacillus rests, or it may be used 

 as an argument in favor of the specificity of the pertussis organism. 

 Evidently, with the present data at hand, it is impossible to settle 

 either question absolutely. 



Pertussoid, pseudo- pertussis, etc. A few words may be said con- 

 cerning a condition variously referred to in the literature as a 

 whooping-cough-like cough in influenza, pertussoid, pseudo-pertussis, 

 etc., by Leichtenstern, Forchheimer, Filatow, Guidi, Pestalozza and 

 others. From the description given, it would appear that these con- 

 ditions are intermediary forms between influenza on the one hand, and 

 whooping-cough on the other. This is certainly suggestive in view 

 of the fact that bacilli so nearly alike, if not identical, are found so 

 constantly in both these diseases. Forchheimer 1 was able to find 

 the influenza bacillus in but few of the cases, but found strepto- 

 cocci constantly. 



I have had an opportunity of examining only two cases which 

 might come under this class. Both were adults, and both had come 

 in contact more or less with whooping-cough patients. Each had a 

 very severe cough, lasting several weeks, spasmodic in character but 

 without distinct whoops. In the sputum of both, influenza-like 

 bacilli were found, quite numerous in one, but very few in the other. 



1 Archives of Pediatrics, 1900, 17, p. 801. 



