Q 01/05

Which Allied war leader's bacterial pneumonia was successfully treated with the early sulfa drug M&B 693?

A) Franklin D. Roosevelt

B) Charles de Gaulle

C) Winston Churchill

D) Joseph Stalin

Answer · why

C) Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was not the drug's only celebrity patient: in 1944 M&B 693 also saved Nero, a circus lion, from pneumonia.

Q 02/05

A 1976 pneumonia outbreak in a Philadelphia hotel struck the annual convention of which organization?

A) American Legion

B) Rotary International

C) Knights of Columbus

D) Shriners International

Answer · why

A) American Legion

The American Legion gave Legionnaires' disease its name; the bacterium was later found breeding in the cooling tower of the hotel's air conditioning.

Q 03/05

Which circus performers risk a rare chemical pneumonia that is named after their own act?

A) Sword swallowers

B) Fire breathers

C) Human cannonballs

D) Trapeze artists

Answer · why

B) Fire breathers

Fire breathers can inhale some of the lamp oil they spray, and symptoms often begin only 8 to 24 hours after the performance.

Q 04/05

Which backer of the Tutankhamun dig died in 1923 after an infected mosquito bite led to pneumonia?

A) Howard Carter

B) Flinders Petrie

C) Arthur Evans

D) Lord Carnarvon

Answer · why

D) Lord Carnarvon

Lord Carnarvon died within months of the tomb's discovery, and newspaper speculation turned his death into the legend of the mummy's curse.

Q 05/05

Psittacosis, a bird-borne cause of severe pneumonia, is better known as the fever of which birds?

A) Parrots

B) Pigeons

C) Canaries

D) Chickens

Answer · why

A) Parrots

Parrots shipped in from abroad were linked to a 1929–1930 outbreak that pushed scientists to study the disease seriously.