The present epidemic is the result of a disease of extreme communicability. So far as information available to the committee shows, the disease is limited to human beings.

The micro-organism of virus primarily responsible for this disease has not yet been identified. There is, however, no reason whatsoever for doubting that such an agency is responsible for it. Mental conditions may cause one to believe he has influenza when he has not, and may make the patient who has the disease suffer more severely than he otherwise would. No mental state alone, however, will cause the disease in one who is not infected by the organism or virus that underlies the malady.

While the prevailing disease is generally known as influenza, and while it will be so referred to in this statement, it has not yet been satisfactorily established that it is the identical disease heretofore known by that name, nor has it been definitely established that all preceding outbreaks of disease styled at the time “influenza” have been outbreaks of one and the same malady.

There is no known laboratory method by which an attack of influenza can be differentiated from an ordinary cold or bronchitis or other inflammation of the mucous membranes of the nose, pharynx, or throat.

There is no known laboratory method by which it can be determined when a person who has suffered from influenza ceases to be capable of transmitting the disease to others.

Laboratories are necessary agencies for the supervision and ultimate control of the disease. The research laboratory is necessary for the discovery of the causative micro-organism or virus, and for the discovery of some practicable method for the propagation of a specific vaccine and a curative serum. Clinical laboratories are necessary for the supervision and control of such vaccines and sera as may be used from time to time for the prevention of the disease and for therapeutic purposes, and for the information such laboratories can give to health officers and physicians as to such variations in the types of infective micro-organisms, as occur during the progress of an epidemic.

Deaths resulting from influenza are commonly due to pneumonias resulting from an invasion of the lungs by one or more forms of streptococci, or by one or more forms of pneumococci, or by the so-called influenza bacillus, or bacillus of Pfeiffer. This invasion is apparently secondary to the initial attack.

Evidence seems conclusive that the infective micro-organism or virus of influenza is given off from the nose and mouth of infected persons. It seems equally conclusive that it is taken in through the mouth or nose of the person who contracts the disease, and in no other way, except as a bare possibility through the eyes, by way of the conjunctivÆ or tear ducts.