• DOI:10.1093/AJE/144.SUPPLEMENT_8.S39
• Corpus ID: 9808372

Airborne disease: including chemical and biological warfare.

@article{Eickhoff1996AirborneDI,
  title={Airborne disease: including chemical and biological warfare.},
  author={Theodore C. Eickhoff},
  journal={American journal of epidemiology},
  year={1996},
  volume={144 8 Suppl},
  pages={
          S39-46
        }
}

• T. Eickhoff
• Published 15 October 1996
• History
• American journal of epidemiology

This contribution examines the influence of Alexander D. Langmuir's career on our knowledge and understanding of airborne disease. The historical background of airborne infection is presented first, followed by an assessment of Langmuir's contributions to this broad area. Several phases of his career can be identified insofar as they relate to airborne infections: 1) studies conducted in the 1940s during World War II under the auspices of the Commission on Acute Respiratory Diseases of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board; 2) chemical and biological warfare considerations and the formation of the Epidemic Intelligence Service during the late 1940s and 1950s; 3) maturing views and the scientific basis for a theory of airborne disease during the late 1950s and 1960s; and 4) reconsideration of conventional epidemiologic theory during the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, the impact of Langmuir's unique contributions is assessed in relation to our present understanding of airborne infection and to future research directions. The recent history of understanding airborne infection can be appreciated only by understanding the beliefs that existed at the time Langmuir embarked on his professional career. Earlier views about the relative importance of the airborne route of disease transmission had been cyclic in nature (1). Early philosophers and writers acknowledged an important influence of air. Hippocrates (400 B.C.) believed that air, along with water and places, influenced health. Some 600 years later, Galen noted that one should consider the air that we breathe when many sicken and die at once. The occurrence of major epidemics such as the Black Death in Europe during the 14th century seemed to underscore his observations. For most of medieval and renaissance history, and lasting until the mid-nineteenth century, virtually all in-