In the very building where the mysterious Legionnaires' Disease may have been contracted, doctors last week gathered for a symposium, eating lunch and sipping beverages, apparently unconcerned about being stricken with the deadly malady. The physicians had assembled in Philadelphia's Bellevue Stratford Hotel not as an act of reckless bravado but to exchange all the latest information about the cause of the ailment that left 29 people dead and struck 151 others last summer after an American Legion convention at the hostelry.
The fact that the doctors were able to enjoy the cuisine and courtesies of the nearly empty hotel without any adverse aftereffects was the only positive note to come out of the meeting; participants agreed that they are as perplexed as ever about the cause of the illness. Despite the efforts of researchers at dozens of laboratories, medical sleuths still cannot say whether the disease was brought on by a toxic substance or some unusual virus—though they appear to have excluded bacteria. Admitted Dr. William E. Parkin, chief epidemiologist of the Pennsylvania state health department: "It may be one year, five years or a hundred years before our technology becomes efficient enough to cope with it."
Shaking Chills. In fact, the investigators learned that the search itself may entail some risks. While examining tissue from a victim last month, Dr. Sheila Moriber Katz, a pathologist at Philadelphia's Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital, became seriously ill with symptoms that looked strikingly like those of Legionnaires' Disease: muscle pain, shaking chills and high fever. Katz's illness was clinically diagnosed as viral pneumonia, and she recovered in time to attend last week's meeting. But try as they might, doctors have been unable to identify the virus that felled her—if it was indeed a virus.
Still, Legionnaires' Disease continued to take its toll. Though evidence implicating the Bellevue Stratford has always been circumstantial at best—for one thing, not all the victims were guests —it was enough to scare off many patrons. Since the summer, the occupancy rate of the "Grand Old Lady of Broad Street," as Philadelphians affectionately call it, had dipped to a disastrous 8% —and losses climbed to $10,000 a day. Even such gestures as last week's symposium did not help. Indeed, the meeting was really more like a wake. At week's end the Bellevue Stratford closed its doors—thus becoming the 30th fatality of Legionnaires' Disease.