1. Legionnaires’ disease got its name from a 1976 outbreak at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. After returning home from the convention, a number of Legionnaires began experiencing mysterious symptoms like fevers that reached 107 degrees, as well as pneumonia (a lung infection). By the following month, 6 of the 14 infected men had died, reports the Times, yet laboratory tests couldn’t determine a cause for the illnesses.The outbreak quickly made front page news amid fears of an epidemic. Six months after the initial cases were identified, doctors discovered that the illness was caused by a bacterium, which they named Legionella pneumophila. Legionella grows in warm water, and the outbreak at the convention was spread by the hotel’s air-conditioning system.
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