Word: influenza
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...first suspects to be screened-because potentially most worrisome on a national scale-was swine flu, a seemingly virulent form of influenza that first surfaced last winter at Fort Dix, N.J., where it infected about a dozen soldiers and killed one. Swine flu may also be related to the flu that killed over half a million Americans in 1918-19 (see box). Some felt that the rapid onset of the Legionnaires' disease was typical of flu. Others thought that the appearance of a condition similar to viral pneumonia, which can also be a result of influenza, was a convincing...
...determine if influenza was the killer, the researchers took solutions made from tissues taken from disease victims and injected them into three kinds of cultures-chick embryos, human and monkey cells, and live mice. The viruses would indicate their presence by killing the living cells and by killing or infecting the mice. They would reveal their existence in the chicks indirectly. Fluid from the infected chick eggs was mixed with samples of normal animal blood to see if the embryonic cells would agglutinate, or "clump" together; if they did, it would mean that a virus was present...
Some doctors hoped, in a way, that the tests would show that the villain was indeed an influenza virus, since at least some vaccines against flu were already available for use. But it was not to be so simple a case. After reviewing the results of their first set of tests, scientists ruled out swine flu or any flu as a suspect...
...most savage of all epidemics in the world since the Black Death, and by far the most lethal in the history of the Americas, was the 1918-19 worldwide pandemic of influenza. Often called the Spanish flu because some of the earliest cases reported were in Spain, it actually erupted simultaneously in places as far apart as southern Russia and Greenland. Soldiers on the battle front suddenly keeled over. Policemen donned masks to direct traffic, and small children were similarly covered in their carriages...
Fearing a repetition of the worldwide 1918-19 influenza pandemic that cost 548,000 lives in the U.S. alone, President Ford last March called for the inoculation of virtually all Americans against swine flu. His announcement had all the fervor of a declaration of "war, and Congress promptly authorized funds for the largest public health measure in U.S. history. But the flu campaign has run into one roadblock after another. Last week it appeared close to total collapse...