PNEUMONIA AS IT MAY AFFECT YOUNG ADULTS: 300 CONSECUTIVE CASES AMONG STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN*

THERE is in evidence a growing appreciation of the fact that pneumonia is far from being a disease sharply limited within the confines of definite clinical specification. That pneumonia may be caused by a considerable variety of bacterial agents is well known, each organism endowed with dif-ferent degrees of virulence, which, further, may fluctuate from time to time. So, also, is recognized the modification of symptoms and prognosis possible by quantitative pulmonary and hemic involvement, as well as by such qualita-tive factors as age, physical condition and individual resistance in the patient. As McKinlay6 remarks, Bullowa and Wilcox1 have well summed up the situation when they stress that the endemic pneumonias are a series of dis-eases, varying as to their occurrence from year to year and from month to month, and differing in respect to the age of the patient, incidence, mortality, tendency to invade the blood stream, and other characters. Most papers on the subject of pneumonia concern themselves with the pneumococcal forms, usually depicting severe lobar involvement with a ver