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bacillus. This bacillus or microbe exhibits features characteristic
and peculiar to itself, and differing from those of all other
organisms yet recognised. Cultivation and inoculation experiments
prove that its introduction into the circulation of animals
results in the appearance of severe symptoms accompanied by
fever. These researches of Pfeiffer have been confirmed by other
eminent scientists.
As an immediate consequence of this discovery, we arc placed
in possession of exact knowledge in regard to the causal agent of
influenza. We are in a position to know that the symptoms we
recognise as constituting an attack of Influenza result from the
presence in the human body of a microscopic organism, and that
the disorder is propagated by its transference from one individual
to another. That the disease is in fact zymotic. From the experiments
of this scientist we also learn that the breath and
expectoration are the chief media through which infection is
conveyed. Moreover, from a consideration of the latter fact we
may with confidence infer—and experience justifies the view—that
persons suffering from catarrhal symptoms, accompanied by much
cough and expectoration, are highly infectious. Whilst in the
absence of catarrhal symptoms infection is little to be feared, even
from those who are the subject of a severe attack. It has been
observed, in the history of the recent epidemics, that during the
invasion period, infection follows the lines of trade and traffic, and
its extension is dependent on the operations of human intercourse.
The disease is not aerial in the common acception of that term,
but contagious. It does not resemble malaria, which may be
contracted in isolated places, but it is of the same order as measles
and whooping cough, that spread when people are in contact.
These are some of the salient facts in connection with the infectiousness
of influenza. Other considerations, however, have a close
bearing upon the subject. During the prevalence of influenza, a
large proportion of the persons affected exhibit symptoms little
differing in character and severity from the manifestations of an
ordinary cold. In the first stage of the complaint, now recognised