1896.J MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 209 



Influenza in Infants and Children. 



vSOME DIAGNOSTIC AND THERAPEUTIC HINTS. 

 By Iv. FISCHER, M. D. 



At various times, and chiefly wheu pneumonia and 

 diphtheria and other infectous diseases predominate, we 

 find a series of symptoms which frequently haffle the 

 physician. Moreover, they simulate, by tlie pains in the 

 limbs, muscular rheumatism ; the catarrhal, gastric and 

 enteric symptoms will simulate gastroenteritis, or the 

 coryza and cough will remind the attendant of the onset 

 of either measles or a severe form of bronchitis, possibly 

 pneumonia. It is very infectious, the period of incuba- 

 tion very short, and, unlike most infectious diseases, one 

 contact does not protect from subsequent epidemics; that 

 is, relapses are common. 



The mortality is exceedingly high; the disease is ex- 

 ceedingly contagious and is frequently transmitted from 

 an adult to the children in the immediate neighborhood, 

 sometimes on the same day or within two or three days 

 after one member has been stricken. 



The disease is caused by a micro-organism which has 

 been designated the "influenza bacillus," and has been de- 

 scribed by R. Pfeiflfer in the Zeitschrift fur Hygiene und 

 Infections-Kranliheiten, No. 13, and can be cultivated on 

 agar containing haemoglobin. The bacillus is found in 

 the blood of infected children, also in the expectorations 

 — chiefly, however, from the nose, throat and lungs. 



This germ was simultaneously discovered by Canon 

 in 1892. It is a small, specific organism, about the same 

 diameter as the bacillus of mouse septicaemia, but only 

 about half as long. They are usually solitary, but may 

 be united in chains of three or four elements. They stain 

 rather poorly, excepting with such concentrated pene- 

 trating stains as carbol-fuchsin and alkaline methylene 



