Excerpts on the Influenza and Pneumonia Pandemic of 1918
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SURGEON GENERAL
FOR FISCAL YEAR 1919
VOLUME I
618
INFECTIOUS DISEASES
GENERAL REMARKS
On the following pages will he found a discussion with tables and charts of certain infectious diseases. If the figures in the small tables, particularly the figures for the white and colored, are compared with the figures in the large tables in the appendix some discrepancies will, no doubt, be detected. These discrepancies are due to sonic errors in reassembling the cards to make up the small tables. The figures in the appendix are the correct ones and the ones that should be accepted. Due to the short period of time available for the preparation of the report and to the shortage in clerical help, it was impossible to eliminate all errors. Such errors as exist are, however, too small to vary the material conclusions that can be drawn. In considering the comparative rates for the white and colored, no conclusions are warranted from the rates for the colored other than the colored from the Southern States. In the nativity tables the rates for the other States for the colored troops are based upon small numbers and are not reliable. Likewise, the figures for the colored troops in some of the camps where there was only a small number of them serving, are abnormally high or abnormally low. Before any deductions are drawn from any of these abnormal rates for the colored, an examination should be made of the population tables for the camps to determine whether the rates are founded upon numbers that are sufficiently large to be reliable.
