title: Lessons from Legionnaires' disease.
abstract: In July 1976 a pneumonialike epidemic from a previously unrecognized microorganism erupted among Legionnaires who had attended a meeting in Philadelphia. There were an estimated 182 cases, in which 29 patients died. Among other things the episodes shows that even in a medically sophisticated industrialized nation, a bacterical pathogen can produce a small epidemic and defy identification for almost 6 months. One historical implication of the event is the need to consider the possibility of a return of large-scale epidemic disease rivaling the sweeps of bubonic plague in fourteenth-century Europe. Such epidemics could occur through any of a variety of microorganismic mechanisms recognized as operating at the present time. It is suggested that humans would react to such a disaster much as their progenitors did centuries ago.
mesh_terms: D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005060:Europe; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D007877:Legionnaires' Disease / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D010930:Plague / Q000266:history* / Q000523:psychology; D014481:United States