A 24-Year-Old Man with Pain and Dyspnea

   A 24-year-old man was admitted in March 1923 with acute fever, pleuritic chest pain, chills, dyspnea, and productive cough with pinkish and purulent sputum. Physical findings included elevated temperature, tachypnea, and diminished breath sounds bilaterally. Chest radiograph showed bilateral patchy consolidations, suggestive of pneumonia. Over four hospital days, symptoms worsened and led to death. Autopsy revealed fibrinopurulent pleural effusions and necrotizing bronchopneumonia with diphtheritic membranes in the airways. The likely diagnosis was influenza pneumonia complicated by bacterial superinfection and possible empyema. The case contextualizes the clinical and public health history of influenza, from the 1918 pandemic to vaccine development, surveillance systems, and contemporary challenges in vaccination coverage.

   A 24-year-old man was admitted in March 1923 with acute fever, pleuritic chest pain, chills, dyspnea, and productive cough with pinkish and purulent sputum. Physical findings included elevated temperature, tachypnea, and diminished breath sounds bilaterally. Chest radiograph showed bilateral patchy consolidations, suggestive of pneumonia. Over four hospital days, symptoms worsened and led to death. Autopsy revealed fibrinopurulent pleural effusions and necrotizing bronchopneumonia with diphtheritic membranes in the airways. The likely diagnosis was influenza pneumonia complicated by bacterial superinfection and possible empyema. The case contextualizes the clinical and public health history of influenza, from the 1918 pandemic to vaccine development, surveillance systems, and contemporary challenges in vaccination coverage.