Pneumonia has been a common disease throughout human history.The word is from Greek πνεύμων (pneúmōn) meaning “lung”. The symptoms were described by Hippocrates (c. 460 BC – 370 BC): “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 if cough be present, and the sputa expectorated be of a blond or livid color, or likewise thin, frothy, and florid, or having any other character different from the common…
When pneumonia is at its height, the case is beyond remedy if he is not purged, and it is bad if he has dyspnoea, and urine that is thin and acrid, and if sweats come out about the neck and head, for such sweats are bad, as proceeding from the suffocation, rales, and the violence of the disease which is obtaining the upper hand.” However, Hippocrates referred to pneumonia as a disease “named by the ancients”. He also reported the results of surgical drainage of empyemas. Maimonides (1135–1204 AD) observed: “The basic symptoms that occur in pneumonia and that are never lacking are as follows: acute fever, sticking pleuritic pain in the side, short rapid breaths, serrated pulse and cough.” This clinical description is quite similar to those found in modern textbooks, and it reflected the extent of medical knowledge through the Middle Ages into the 19th century.
Edwin Klebs was the first to observe bacteria in the airways of persons having died of pneumonia in 1875. Initial work identifying the two common bacterial causes, Streptococcus pneumoniae and Klebsiella pneumoniae, was performed by Carl Friedländer and Albert Fraenkel, in 1882 and 1884, respectively. Friedländer’s initial work introduced the Gram stain, a fundamental laboratory test still used today to identify and categorize bacteria. Christian Gram’s paper describing the procedure in 1884 helped to differentiate the two bacteria, and showed that pneumonia could be caused by more than one microorganism.
Sir William Osler, known as “the father of modern medicine”, appreciated the death and disability caused by pneumonia, describing it as the “captain of the men of death” in 1918, as it had overtaken tuberculosis as one of the leading causes of death in this time. This phrase was originally coined by John Bunyan in reference to “consumption” (tuberculosis). Osler also described pneumonia as “the old man’s friend” as death was often quick and painless when there were much slower and more painful ways to die.
Several developments in the 1900s improved the outcome for those with pneumonia. With the advent of penicillin and other antibiotics, modern surgical techniques, and intensive care in the 20th century, mortality from pneumonia, which had approached 30%, dropped precipitously in the developed world. Vaccination of infants against Haemophilus influenzae type B began in 1988 and led to a dramatic decline in cases shortly thereafter. Vaccination against Streptococcus pneumoniae in adults began in 1977, and in children in 2000, resulting in a similar decline.