The object of this report is to call attention to an unusual epidemic of throat infection in the surgical wards of a hospital, caused by a peculiar hemolytic streptococcus and sharply differentiated from the streptococcus bronchitis and bronchopneumonia which assumed epidemic proportions during the winter of 1917-1918 and has been present to a less extent during the winter of 1918-1919.
PREVIOUS EPIDEMICS
Streptococcic sore throat, septic sore throat, epidemic sore throat and milk-borne sore throat are terms used synonymously to denote the type of epidemic disease here described. The first description of a similar disease in the United States was that of an outbreak in eastern Massachusetts in May, 1911,1 although in England writers had recognized and reported outbreaks previously.2 Further outbreaks in the United States were reported from Chicago in December and January, 1911-1912,3 and from Baltimore in February, 1912.4 All of these epidemics were