Title | The St Kilda boat cough under the microscope. | ||
Author | Stride, P | ||
Journal | J R Coll Physicians Edinb | Publication Year/Month | 2008-Sep |
PMID | 19227604 | PMCID | -N/A- |
Affiliation | 1.Redcliffe Hospital, Redcliffe, Queensland, Australia. peter_stride@health.qld.gov.au. |
The inhabitants of St Kilda, a remote archipelago in the Outer Hebrides, suffered from outbreaks of a respiratory tract infection known as the boat cough every time strangers visited their isolated community between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. This condition has always been labelled influenza, but a review of contemporary records and modern microbiological evidence strongly suggests the illness was due to rhinovirus.