THE INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC OF 1918 IN THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCES IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND

INTRODUCTION  In the spring of 1918 reports appeared of an epidemic disease in various parts of Southern France, Italy and Spain. Greater publicity was given to these reports in Spain, doubtless, in part, because that country was not engaged in war. By midsummer this disease had spread widely throughout Europe, and in the autumn had involved South Africa and America.Numerous reports dealing with outbreaks of this disease have accumulated in the office of the Chief Surgeon. A. E. F., and in several instances special investigations of the epidemiology and bacteriology of these outbreaks have been reported. The purpose of the present paper is to give a summary account of the disease in the A. E. F., based on these reports, and to bring the observations made here into correlation with reports of the disease elsewhere. Manifestly, available reports are in many instances fragmentary, and the world's literature is not