Pneumonia is infection of one or both lungs which is usually caused by a microorganism which can be either a bacteria, virus or fungus. Discovery of antibiotics in the last 50 years has dramatically improved the treatment of pneumonia.
Pneumonia is one of the commonest causes of hospitalization and death in young children and elderly population.
Peripneumonia, and pleuritic affections, are to be thus observed: If the fever be acute, and if there be pains on either side, or in both, and if expiration be attended with pain, if cough be present, and the sputa expectorated be of a blond or livid colour, or likewise thin, frothy, and florid…. When pneumonia is at its height…it is bad if he had dyspnoea…and if sweat comes out about the neck and head, for such sweats are bad, as proceeding from the suffocation, rales, and the violence of the disease.
-Hippocrates, [460-375 BC] |
|
|