March 15, 1897, I was requested by Dr. M. B. Hutton of Valley Falls, N. Y, to visit a family in which four members had been stricken with illness in an unusual and very serious manner.
The family consisted of the father and mother, a daughter, two sons, and a brother of the father. The daughter had been away from home, teaching school, until three or four days prior to my visit.
The cases were as follows, viz:
C. M., a boy, aged 14, became ill March 4 with the ordinary signs and symptoms of lobar pneumonia. The local physical signs corresponded to the ordinary course of the pulmonic disorder, and March 11 the lung had so far cleared as to show that some element other than ordinary pneumonia existed, for instead of an improvement in the general condition, the symptoms became progressively worse, and the patient died March 13.