AN EPIDEMIC OF INFECTIOUS HEPATITIS APPARENTLY DUE TO A WATER BORNE AGENT

Abstract

The control of infectious (epidemic) hepatitis, the only pandemic disease of the present war, has been seriously handicapped by the lack of any conclusive evidence concerning its method or methods of transmission. In our recent report on the prevention and attenuation of infectious hepatitis by gamma globulin¹there was brief mention of the epidemic in which the globulin was tested. The epidemiologic factors involved in that epidemic also were investigated, and subsequently transmission experiments in human volunteers, using materials obtained from the patients and the camp, were conducted in order to supplement and confirm the epidemiologic observations. The results of these investigations have provided information concerning the sources of the causative agent and at least one of the methods responsible for its transmission. I. THE EPIDEMIC The Camp.— The epidemic occurred in a summer camp for boys and girls located in an isolated area in the Pocono Mountains near