MUCH has been written about, and much discussion has ensued with regard to, the disease termed atypical nonbacterial primary pneumonia, or virus pneumonia, its etiology and treatment. Most of the discussion has dealt with etiology, and I wish to make it quite clear in the beginning that the etiologic agent in the present series of patients studied is certainly not proved or disproved. I have purposely omitted the term "virus pneumonia" and substituted "primary atypical pneumonia," admitting without hesitation that the question, "Why is this called primary atypical pneumonia, cured with aureomycin?" cannot be answered satisfactorily.
The ambiguous status of the etiology of this disease is still well characterized by the designation recommended early in the war by the Army Epidemiological Board, namely "primary atypical pneumonia, etiology unknown."1 The viral nature of the etiologic agent is strongly suggested by the transmissibility of the disease to normal persons by means