Pneumonia at a Base Hospital

The author gives an account of the pneumonia morbidity and fatality at Camp Pike, Ark., between September, 1917, and April 27, 1918.In this period there were 1,285 pneumonia patients; 857 of these had lobar pneumonia, and 428 had bronchopneumonia.In the beginning the cases were mild, and in both forms corresponded to the ordinary types seen in civil life.The mortality was low.As winter came on, however, the proportion of bronchopneu monia increased, and the mortality also increased, especially that of bronchopneumonia, which showed 53 per cent, fatal in January.After that, the death percentages declined, being nearly parallel at the close of the period mentioned.It is difficult, Small says, to give a definite reason for the difference in mortality in midwinter and the later months compared with that of the first two months.The antecedent, measles may have been a factor in the broncho pneumonias, and also in a number of the streptococcus cases.The author thinks that the virulence of the organism must undoubt edly be increased by its passage through the human host.Many of the cases of bronchopneumonia began with the most trivial sub jective symptoms, and practically no objective signs.A few fine moist rales, usually at the back and near the angle of the scapula, were often the only physical signs present, but in another twelve or twenty-four hours there would be marked consolidation in the