The occurrence of Bamble Disease (epidemic pleurodynia) in Norway.

IN 1962 the New York Academy of Sciences arranged a conference on Comparative Virology. During this conference Hildegard Plagerl read an interesting paper on 'The Coxsackie Viruses'. These viruses have been subdivided into two groups, A and B. Infections caused by B viruses include epidemic pleurodynia. She started the epidemiological part of her paper in this way: 'The first description of epidemic pleuro-dynia, originally known as Bornholm disease, came from Norway in 1872.' The disease which occurred in Norway in 1872 was first described by Daae2. As the first case occurred in a little place called Bamble, the common Norwegian name for the disease is Bamble disease. The first case which was recorded on Bornholm occurred about sixty years later. Bornholm belongs to Denmark, and in 1930 a Danish doctor, Sylvest3, proposed giving the disease a Danish name, Bornholm disease. Before Sylvest gave the disease this name, several epidemics had already been described in Norway. Unfortunately, these papers were written in Norwegian only and thus published only in Norwegian medical journals. For this reason they have remained almost unknown outside this country. In this paper I will therefore try to give a historical review of the occurrence and epidemiology of this disease in Norway. In the middle of the last century the medical administrative district of Krager6 in Southern Norway covered a wide area of about 1,640 square kilometres with a population of about 17,000. Most of the inhabitants were scattered over the district on their farms, and there was only one small town by the coast, Krager6 itself, with barely 4,000 inhabitants. In this district Homann was the medical officer of health from 1860 to 1880. He maintained repeatedly that more reliable observations on the causes and modes of dissemination of disease could be obtained better and with far greater certainty under the limited and transparent conditions in rural Norway than in the towns. Homann was born in Kragero where his father had been medical officer of health. He was therefore well known in the district. The population had unbounded faith in both father and son and was therefore able to assist them in many ways with valuable information and observations. In 1859 there was a large dysentery epidemic in the district, and in 1864 some cases of typhoid appeared. The disease rapidly assumed epidemic proportions. Homann, together with his assistant, Hartwig, made comprehensive studies of the behaviour of …