

EPIDEMIC INFLUENZA 113 



pneumosintes, whereas that of normal persons does not. 

 These experimental observations, reported elsewhere 

 in greater detail, especially in view of the source of the 

 cultures, their effects in rabbits, their identity, and the 

 presence of specific antibodies in the blood serum of re- 

 cently recovered influenza patients, point to Bacterium 

 pneumosintes as the bacterial incitant of epidemic in- 

 fluenza. Moreover, many of the essential facts brought 

 out in this study have been confirmed by Loewe and 

 Zeman, and by Baehr and Loewe in New York, by Gor- 

 don in England, and by Lister in South Africa. The 

 significance of similar observations from such widely 

 separated localities is obvious. But medical science is 

 apparently at the threshold of knowledge of a group or 

 class of minute microorganisms which the anaerobic 

 Smith-Noguchi technique and more recently developed 

 methods of cultivation have thrown open to exploit- 

 ation. This new field of bacteriology invites further in- 

 vestigation. It has seemed wise merely to report the 

 experimental facts so far obtained and to defer the final 

 decision on the precise relation which Bacterium pneu- 

 mosintes bears to epidemic influenza until further ex- 

 perience is obtained. 



GUIDE TO FURTHER READING 



"Twenty-five Years of Bacteriology. A Fragment of Medical 

 Research," by Simon Flexner. Science, 1920, vol. lii, page 615. 



" Parasitism as a Factor in Disease," by Theobald Smith. Science, 

 1921, vol. liv, page 99. 



"Epidemiology and Recent Epidemics," by Simon Flexner. 

 Science, 1919, vol. 1, page 317; Jour. Jmer. Mtd. Assn., 1919, voL 

 kxiii, page 949. 



