Epidemic Influenza, A Survey.

The Committee on Scientific Research of the American Medical Association is to be congratulated on having secured the services of one so appropriately fitted as Professor Jordan to make a comprehensive survey of the literature on the last great influenza pandemic. He has examined most of the publications on the subject (his selected bibliography contains nearly 1,300 references) and has apparently done so with great care. His comments are critical and to the point; his conclusions are drawn with caution. Jordan believes that the pandemic of 1918 was pretty certainly identical with that of 1890 and the other great pandemics of history; but that its relation to the endemic disease diagnosed "influenza" and to the milder, more localized interpandemic epidemics of "influenza" is still an open question and is likely to remain so until their etiology is established. The voluminous statistical material on morbidity and mortality and the bearing on