1919 · Milton J. Rosenau
Experiments to Determine Mode of Spread of Influenza
What this work is
Rosenau's 1919 report on experiments with Navy volunteers during the influenza outbreak. On an island in Boston Harbor his team sprayed cultured bacteria into volunteers, put patients' nose and throat washings into their noses and throats, injected filtered washings, and had patients cough in their faces. None of the volunteers fell ill.
Then and now
Rosenau put flu patients' secretions, coughs, and the bacterium then blamed for flu into healthy Navy volunteers, and none got sick. Virology kept its theory, blamed immunity and a fragile agent, and buried the result.
Verdict
SCIENTIFIC
The work follows the scientific method and does not operate inside a theoretical framework. The verdict is scientific.
1·This work · no theoretical framework
SCIENTIFIC
Follows the scientific method. No theoretical framework attached.
2·Paradigm · Basic Epidemiological Comparison
NOT APPLICABLE
No theoretical framework. The study verdict decides.
How the verdict is decided
This work does not operate inside a theoretical framework. Using hospital records, billing codes, or diagnostic names as labels on visible events is not the same as depending on that framework. The verdict is the work methodology score alone.
1·This work
Did this work test its claim with methods that are independent, falsifiable, and non-circular?
SCIENTIFIC
This study claims that no method tried, from spraying grown bacteria to dripping sick patients' nose and throat washings into volunteers to face-to-face exposure with the acutely ill, could make healthy young men sick with influenza. All three tests pass.
Independently Verifiable
Pass
A man falling ill or staying well, with fever read off a thermometer three times a day for a week on a quarantine island, is an observation that needs no theory of influenza to exist.
Falsifiable
Pass
If the exposure transmitted the disease, fevers would have shown on the charts within the week, and since none did, the transmission claim died in the open and was reported dead.
Non-Circular
Pass
The secretions came straight from feverish patients and the outcome was visible illness in the volunteers, so no instrument built from a prior conclusion about influenza did any sorting or measuring.
Why
Fever on a thermometer and a man up or in bed need no theory of influenza. The claim that the material passes the disease was tested in the open, and when nobody fell ill it was reported dead. The secretions came straight from feverish patients and the outcome was visible illness, so nothing built from a prior conclusion sorted anyone. The fevers later seen at Portsmouth stayed in the record.
2·Paradigm · Basic Epidemiological Comparison
The three tests do not apply. There is no theoretical framework.
NOT APPLICABLE
Why
The study put material from the bodies of sick people into the bodies of well people and watched who fell ill. That comparison means the same thing to someone who rejects every theory of influenza. The donors were chosen because they were feverish in bed during outbreaks, not because a test flagged them. The volunteers were watched with thermometers and examinations for a week on a quarantine island. Nothing in the design needed germ theory, virology, or any other framework to run first. The contagion idea supplied the hypothesis, but the method would have produced the same result for anyone: either the men get sick or they do not. There is no framework to score, so the study verdict stands on its own.
From the work
We always kept in mind the fact that we have no criterion of influenza ; therefore I would like to emphasize the fact that we never took an isolated case of fever, but selected our donors from a distinct focus or outbreak of the disease
None of these volunteers who received the material thus directly transferred from cases took sick in any way.
In about thirty-six hours, half of the number we exposed came down with fever and sore throat, with hemolytic streptococci present, and doubtless as the causal agent.
the patient breathed out as hard as he could, while the volunteer, muzzle to muzzle (in accordance with his instructions, about 2 inches between the two), received this expired breath, and at the same time was breathing in as the patient breathed out.