Nexus - 1806 - New Times Magazine-pages

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The situation had become so grave in hogs and cattle the tubercle bacilli. Gaffky, Pansini, Cornet, Spengler, hat by 1917, one year before the most destructive | Schabad, Ortner and Flick, among others, agreed.” pandemic ever, the Cooperative State-Federa Various organisms, all of which reappeared to confuse Tuberculosis Eradication Program, administered by the _ scientists in 1918, were assigned a share in the clinical US Department of Agriculture and the Animal and Plan picture of tuberculosis—among them the Streptococcus Health Inspection Service, had to be instituted. Forin and Pneumococcus micro-organisms and even the 917, it was estimated that 25 per cent of deaths from __ influenza bacillus itself. The pyogenic, pus-forming cocci uberculosis in adult humans were caused by anima were more generally suspected than other bacteria of uberculosis.'’ Nor did the fact that swine freely infected complicating tuberculosis. In the British Medical Journal of umans and vice versa faze von Unruh. Swine were a 28 July 1900, the following editorial appeared, dealing mycobacterial laboratory; although they held primarily — with the role of streptococci in tuberculosis: "It is a owl tuberculosis, they could also acquire bovine and remarkable fact that...the bulk of the disturbing and uman forms and freely infect people. dangerous features of tuberculosis are not due to the In "A Comparative Study of the Acid ubercle bacillus, but to streptococci Fast Bacilli", von Unruh stresses that and other pyogenic organisms." The he many cases of influenza he had pneumococci, staph and methycillin- investigated contained both the resistant staph (MRSA) are other resting (dormant) form of TB and the They HSI pyogenic pathogens that subsequently influenza bacillus. Although Pfeiffer for a moment ave been documented. ad likewise documented chronic q British pathologist William Crofton colonisation with his bacillus in TB considered that chafed at the ridiculous notion that in patients, von Unruh saw this, and the this unknown influenza, Pfeiffer's bacillus and only Pfeiffer's bacillus alone should be ound in pure cultures. He asked act that they were both mycobacteria was more suggestive of “a common primary cause could ancestry or origin". Von Unruh wrote: be tuberculosis, whether the typhoid bacillus was ever "We have in influenza the fever, . ound in pure culture. But because malaise, loss of weight, invasion by which not only Pfeiffer's was often found with the very the organism of the same spawned secondary same infections secondary to anatomical structures as in uberculosis, such as from tuberculosis; we have chronic infection with streptococci and pneumocci, cases of bronchitis in which the strep staph and investigator after investigator influenza bacillus is constantly Z . during the Great Pandemic of present; and lastly, we know that pneumococcl 918-19 was coming to the curious conclusion that Pfeiffer's bacillus was not the primary cause but somehow was awakened to activity by some unknown primary cause. They never for a moment considered typical tuberculosis often follows an attack, however mild, of influenza.” Such tubercular infection could in turn lead to other secondary bacterial infections. Noymer and Garenne's statement that that this unknown primary cause tuberculosis was behind the many could be tuberculosis, which not deaths in the 1918 pandemic was specifically based upon _ only spawned secondary infection with strep, staph and the well-known concept that the secondary bacterial | pneumococci but Pfeiffer's bacillus itself. Besides this, infections that cropped up in 1918 were common in TB- — the obvious: microbes like streptococci, pneumococci infected lungs. Noymer and Garenne wrote: "It is highly and staphylococci could produce epidemics, but never plausible that TB infection laid the ground for the — pandemics. What was the source of this confusion? massive secondary bacterial pneumonias that killed the victims of the flu in 1918." Medical Reserve Corps, New York City, July 1918 but Pfeiffer's bacillus itself. They never primary cause could be tuberculosis, which not only spawned secondary infection with as pneumococci but Pfeiffer's Medical Reserve Corps, New York City, July 1918 Victor von Unruh continued to see many reasons to pin a common ancestry onto the two organisms. Both the influenza bacillus and the quiescent TB formed Much's granules. Much’'s granules, named after their discoverer, Hans Much, passed through filters—then a major criterion for diagnosing a virus. Furthermore, both the influenza bacillus and TB were mycobacteria, with the branched fungal forms characteristic of the mycobacteria. And both could stain with "acid-fast" mycobacterial stains. The Reichsgesundheitsamt, Berlin, March 1882 Although it has always perplexed doctors, scientists and historians alike as to why so many microbes were involved during the deadly 1918 epidemic, the explanation was laid out clearly by the German physician/ microbiologist Robert Koch, discoverer of tuberculosis, decades before. From the onset, Koch concluded" that other micro-organisms shared in the destructive work of 20 * NEXUS for a moment considered that this unknown strep, staph and bacillus itself. OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 20I1 www.nexusmagazine.com