BACTERIUM INFLUENZA 129 



bacterium is the Bacterium influenzce or the influenza 

 bacillus. The disease is one which appears in epidemic 

 form usually, but sporadic cases also occur. The 

 organisms are carried in the nose and throat and 

 communicated to others in the fine particles coughed 

 or spat out. They lodge on the mucous surfaces and 

 produce an inflammation through which the poisons 

 are absorbed. The rods themselves do not usually 

 enter the blood stream, but they may do so, as is 

 attested by the fact that there are influenzal forms of 

 pleuritis and pericarditis, diseases probably not due 

 to an extension by continuity. Influenzal pneumonia 

 occurs when the bacteria penetrate to the lung tissue 

 proper. It is comparable in development to the pneu- 

 monia caused by the pneumococcus. The bacillus 

 may at times form pus. 



A very important and highly fatal form of influenzal 

 infection is meningitis due to a blood distribution of 

 the organisms in cases of pneumonia or other local 

 lesion, but at times arising without previous history 

 of illness. The disease is clinically similar to epidemic 

 meningitis and the fluid in the meningeal spaces is 

 likewise purulent. 



The attack of influenza runs an acute course. It 

 leaves but a transient immunity, and one attack is said 

 actually to predispose to another when the individual 

 is exposed subsequently. As complications of influenza 

 of the upper air passages we may have pus in the 

 sinuses about the nose, or otitis media. 



While influenza is an acute disease and the bacteria 

 are actively virulent during an attack, it is believed 

 that they remain in the upper air passages in abey- 

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