Notes on the Therapeutic Value of Pneumococcus Antibody Solution Subcutaneously Administered in Lobar Pneumonia

Jesse Bullowa, specific treatment for pneumonia, and the development of the controlled clinical trial

“…When the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company lost 24 million dollars in excess death benefits during the influenza epidemic of 1918, it established an Influenza Commission, which would soon focus its attention upon pneumonia and its treatment with antipneumococcal antiserum. 5 Intending to fund alternate control studies at multiple institutions, 6 the company would ultimately fund published studies arising from Bellevue and Harlem Hospitals in New York, and from Boston City Hospital. [7][8][9] However, none of the pneumonia investigators -who included such eventual luminaries as Russell Cecil (at Bellevue Hospital in New York) and Maxwell Finland (at Boston City Hospital) -would so explicitly advocate the methodology of the controlled clinical trial as would Jesse Bullowa.…”