Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1918 — DR. WASHBURN WRITES OF INFLUENZA AT CAMP DODGE [ARTICLE]

DR. WASHBURN WRITES OF INFLUENZA AT CAMP DODGE

The following is an extract from a letter written to Mrs. Washburn: Your letter came today and was, as usual, very welcome. The back'bone of the epidemic is broken and I am not so busy any more. The pneumonia cases are as numerous as ever and the fatalities are still' going but on the whole we are getting away with the affair more successfully than other camps. Some important facts have been brought out. These pneumonia cases are not due to pneumococcus, the ordinary pneumonia germ, but to the streptococcus/ a pus producing germ. Post-mortem examination shows the lungs to be permeated by abscesses of various sizes,- invading as* a rule the base of the lungs. So the method has been adopted of inoculating with antistreptococcus vaccine all cases after entering the wards in order to prevent the infection which produces the pneumonia. We are convinced that we are preventing a large number of influenza cases from developing pneumonia.