The addition of 33⅓ per cent. to the normal population of Washington during the past eighteen months has given us a great military camp with barracks-like overcrowding, yet there is nothing comparable to the military supervision of health conditions.
In the present epidemic, the Medical Department of the Navy is treating not only the officers and their families and the enlisted personnel, but also all civilian employees. Up to December 16, 567 cases of influenza and complicating pneumonias were treated at the Naval Hospital. Of these, 157, or 27.8 per cent., either came in with pneumonia or developed it during the residence.
Without going into the clinical picture of the disease, we may say that the outstanding feature is an overwhelming toxemia. Characterized by headache, muscular fatigue and pain, mental dulness, leukopenia and in many cases nausea and vomiting. Nature's forces, thus paralyzed, failed to respond to ordinary therapeutic measures,