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Show the disease, varying in different localities. Dr. King believes' that in view of the striking similarity between the pneumonic plague of north China and the present so-called Spanish influenza, influ-enza, "it is not unreasonable to believe that the two- diseases may be the same; the influenza bacillus and the bacillus pestis in atypical forma may simulate each other." Thus far this is but a theory, and several variations of it are possible. Dr, King's explanation of the spread of the disease does not appear plausible. He attributes it to the 200,000 Chinese Chi-nese coolies sent in 1917 to France as laborers: 'They made splendid laborers, and were in back of the lines during the German Ger-man drive of March, 1918. No doubt many of them were captured cap-tured by the Germans at that time. Hence the outbreak of it in the German army and its rapid spread in Spain." But even if the dates 'fitted, which they do not, why should the Chinese have infected the German army before they did the French army? In view of the fact that by February the disease had reached the Crimea and that even then the German army was on the shores of the Black sea, a much closer connection with Asia is established and it must be remembered that from January German soldiers were being transferred . from Russia to the western front. Not impossibly this treachery had something to do with Ludendorffs defeat. ' ' ' Even if the disease has taken a far less terrible form than in Asia, it is quite serious enough to call for the utmost vigilance. iWhat it is called does not make it worse but its close connection with the most dreaded of all plagues may, induce the public to take in season the needed precautionary measures. "A very grave situation," says Dr. King, "now confronts us; every patient with the epidemic should be quarantined and everything possible should be done now at its outset to prevent its spread." The measures are for professional skill ta devise, yet the public can help by taking the matter seriously, but courageously, avoid panic and complying loyally, with all regulations that may be found needful. If this is done the epidemic may soon pass. i EPIDEMIC OF PNEUMONIA NOT INFLUENZA f ' " (From 8prlngfleld Republican) 1- . Support is given in the Medical Record of October 12 for the theory advanced by The Republi can on September 2J and in less explicit form much earlier, that the "Spanish" influenza may be not influenza at all, but a modified and milder form f the pneumonic pneu-monic plague of which there was a serious outbreak in Mongolia !ast winter. The course of the plague had been watched with anxious attention because of the well known historical connection connec-tion between war and pestilence. To some remarks on that sub- ' . ject exception was taken, somewhat earlier in the war, by the Army and Navy Journal, which held that medical science had broken the connection. This was certainly to be fervently hoped. ! yet it was impossible to forget that enormous and Imperfectly 4 disturbances were going on in the vast interior of Asia, the : great incubator of disease. With this in mind The Republican ventured to suggest on January 5 that the censorship somewhere 'had cut out the word 'plague" fro mthe bare news which had just come an epidemic of pneumonia in northern China, which rtd reached Fengchentang, 160 miles from Pekin. "We cannot forget that it was In that region that the pneuboniic form of plague took its start a decade ago." There could hardly be worse news for the world than that tne plague was again on the march but although the progress of the disease could be traced across Asia to the west, arriving on the coast of the Black sea in February, it proved bo much milder mild-er than had been expected that there was reason to question that the diseases were the same. In, northern China the mortality was at times 100 per cent; in Europe it has apparently been about as in this country. To this point the author of the article in the 'Medical Record, Dr. James Joseph King, of New York, captain in the medical corps of the army, addresses himself. In the pneumonic plague epidemic of China which reached Harbin, Manchuria,- in the latter part of 1910, the plague bacillus was found 'almost constantly associated with the pneumococcus and the streptococcus, the different strains, and also the severity of |
