They do certainly give very strange and new-fangled names to diseases.—Plato.
An increasing number of reports in the literature indicates the presence of a pulmonary condition known by many names but called chiefly virus pneumonia or primary atypical pneumonia. Modern interest in the condition dates from the report of Bowen,1 who called it acute influenza pneumonitis, feeling that it was a mild variant of pandemic influenza. In 1936, one year after Bowen's paper, Allen2 reported 50 cases of the disease and emphasized, as had Bowen, the paucity of physical findings as compared with roentgen films of the chest. Beginning in 1938, Reimann, with various co-workers, has published a number of reports of the disease.3 It has been Reimann's impression that the infection is caused by a filtrable virus, though he admits the absence of conclusive proof. However, this work has served to emphasize the etiologic problem,