Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T12:15:52.340Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Epidemiological Contribution to the Knowledge of the Respiratory Diseases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 May 2009

J. J. van Loghem
J. J. van Loghem
Affiliation:
(Professor of Hygiene in the University of Amsterdam.)
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The results of an inquiry into colds and slight influenza—held by me with the obliging collaboration of 7000 informants in the Netherlands from September 1925 till June 1926—do not contradict the hypothesis propounded in the introduction, that various respiratory diseases depend upon a disturbance in the thermo-regulation, in consequence of which the body becomes receptive to commensal infection.

In the first place a proportionally equal number of colds was reported at the same time from the various parts of the country during the period of observation, while the increase and the decrease of these colds ran parallel to the falling and rising of the temperature of the air. Further, when calculating the figures from large and from small families, it was proved that the members of small families have no lesser chance of infection than the members of large families.

This joint result tells against the contagiousness of colds in the period of observation.

The outbreak in September stood alone; the preceding period had not been marked by a low average temperature but by a series of cold nights. During the following month the occurrence of colds was accompanied by the mortality from old age and by the joint mortality from bronchitis and pneumonia.

An increased mortality from pneumonia in March–April, linked up with a moderate lowering of the temperature of the air, was not accompanied by “old-age mortality” and only moderately by “colds” it went together however with an increased mortality from influenza. The influenza cases of the inquiry too had increased by that period of time. So the influenza showed itself as a parasitic infection, which takes its own epidemic course. Still the possibility remains of the virus, at times of reigning influenza, having also widely spread among the healthy. At any rate the idea that catching cold reduces resistance to influenza or pneumonia is supported by the data.

The opinion obtained from the results of the inquiry, that most colds and pneumonia, as well as many cases in which old age has been given as the cause of death, are founded on a disturbance of the thermo-regulation, has drawn attention to physiological oscillations of the temperature of the body in relation to that of the temperature of the air. As the thermo-regulating system is not able to fix the temperature of the body completely, even under normal conditions, but allows a certain poikilothermia, it is clear that by a considerable drop in the temperature of the air these oscillations of the temperature of the body become so large that they may cause a disturbance.

The prophylaxis of the diseases from catching cold will have to be directed towards the application of “passive” prophylactics (for preserving and supplying heat by imminent cooling), as well as of “active” prophylactics (raising the production of heat by the body).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Hygiene , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , August 1928 , pp. 33 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1928

References

Page 34 note 1 (1917) Het grensgebied van commensalisme en parasitisme. Ned. Tijdschr. v. Geneesk. 1, 994.Google Scholar

Page 34 note 2 (1909) Jaarverslag van het Pathologisch Laboratorium te Medan over 1908. Geneesk. Tijdschr. v. Ned. Indië, 1909Google Scholar; (1910) Over het voorkomen en de beteekenis van den Paratyphus B. bacil, Ned. Tijdschr. voor Geneesk. 2, 1456Google Scholar; (1910) De lijkopeningen in het hospitaal der Deli-Maatschappij te Medan, Ibid. 2, 2150 enz.

Page 34 note 3 (1922) Aenderungen bei Bakterien, aufgefasst als adaptive und regressive Aenderungen während der individuellen Existenz. Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. 1. Abt., Orig. 88, 257.Google Scholar

Page 34 note 4 (1919) Variabilität und Parasitismus. Centralbl. f. Bakteriol. 1. Abt., Orig. 83, 401; (1919) Ned. Tijdschr. v. Geneesk. 2, 784 enz.Google Scholar

Page 35 note 1 (1917) Ned. Tijdschr. v. Geneesk. 1, 995.Google Scholar

Page 36 note 1 Handb. d. norm. u. path. Physiol. (Bethe C.S.), 17, 426.Google Scholar

Page 36 note 2 Greenwood, M., Min. of Health Reports, No. 4.Google Scholar

Page 36 note 3 Young, M. (1924), J. Hygiene, 23, 151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 36 note 4 (24. x. 1924 + 14. i. 1927) Public Health Reports.

Page 40 note 1 K. Ned. Meteorolog. Instituut, Maandoverzicht van de weersgesteldheid in Nederland.

Page 41 note 1 K. Ned. Meteorol. Instituut, Yearbook 1925, p. 62.

Page 46 note 1 Meaning cases of influenza reported to us by our informants during the period of the inquiry.

Page 50 note 1 Individual susceptibility for dry (East) wind or cold mist is not denied.

Page 50 note 2 In the first sections I explained why, at present, I restrict myself to this datum.

Page 50 note 3 From the Yearbook for 1925. The observations for 1926 have not yet been published.

Page 51 note 1 (1916) Erkältungs Krankheiten und Kälteschäden, Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar

Page 51 note 2 (1908) Ned. Tijdschr. v. Geneesk. 2, 1691.Google Scholar

Page 51 note 3 (1922) Ventilation, Report of the New York State Commission on Ventilation.

Page 52 note 1 (1927) Ned. Tijdschrift v. Geneesk. 1, 2064.Google Scholar

Page 54 note 1 Ist Erkältung eine Krankheitsursache und in wiefern? G. Thieme, Leipzig.