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Influenza

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Vaccines: A Biography

Abstract

In attempting to understand the history of specific infectious diseases, it is appropriate to remember the aphorism that “the credibility of historical records is, in general, inversely proportional to their antiquity” (Kilbourne 1987). Because of the nonspecific respiratory symptoms and lack of pathognomonic features of influenza, it is exceedingly difficult to discern the history of this disease against the background of other common communicable maladies that impacted humans prior to the advent of modern scientific methods.

Influenza was likely present in ancient civilizations, probably resulting from the close proximity of early humans with domesticated animal reservoirs. As urbanization evolved, epidemics of acute respiratory disease consistent with classic clinical descriptions of influenza appear to have occurred in frequent, irregular intervals and with varying severity in humans from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries (Wright and Webster 2001; Cunha 2004). In many cases, historical accounts note contemporaneous outbreaks of acute respiratory tract diseases in livestock (Kilbourne 1987), a feature that would prove to be of vital importance to understanding the epidemiologic dynamics of influenza and the interdependence of various animal species in viral pathogenesis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, Center for Biodefense and Emerging Pathogens, Memorial Hospital of Rhode Island, The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Andrew W. Artenstein

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Correspondence to Andrew W. Artenstein .

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  1. Dept. Medicine & Community Health, Brown University, Providence, 02912, U.S.A.

    Andrew W. Artenstein

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Artenstein, A.W. (2010). Influenza. In: Artenstein, A. (eds) Vaccines: A Biography. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1108-7_11

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