Abstract
A NEW contagious disease with symptoms so mild the sickness may go unnoticed has recently been reported by Dr. Carl H. Smith, of Cornell University Medical College and the New York Hospital. The chief feature of the disease is an increase in the lymphocytes of the blood. Although the number of these white cells may be increased almost ten-fold, they are not abnormal. Fever and vomiting, pain in the back of the head and neck, or pain in the abdomen suggestive of appendicitis may occur in this new disease, but when they do, these symptoms last only a few days. In one case Dr. Smith reports, the child had fever, vomiting and abdominal pain, but a brother and sister had only symptoms of a mild cold. Only since 1939 have cases of this disease, called acute infectious lymphocytosis, been reported. The cause has not been identified, but is believed to be a virus. The disease apparently attacks young children chiefly, and they all seem to recover.
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New Contagious Disease in the United States. Nature 154, 331 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154331a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154331a0