Pneumonia

a bacterial disease of the lungs. A severe inflammation of the lungs following exposure, together with general exhaustion of the body, affords favorable conditions for the rapid multiplication of bacteria. The bacteria produce a poison. The first symptom is a chill, which is followed rapidly by fever. Once under way an attack of pneumonia cannot be checked before it has had its natural run of ten or eleven days. In the meanwhile the patient needs to keep up strength. The fever may be kept down and the action of the heart stimulated. Unless the forces of nature win out and exterminate the bacteria, the poison causes heart failure and death. Pneumonia is a city disease. It is on the increase in American cities. "Half of the children who die under the age of five die of it."