Influenza Still Rampant.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 15, 12 October 1907, Page 7

Influenza Still Rampant.

o-—: " AN INSIDIOUS FOE. _ After about; ihreo months' devastating ravanges in and about this city influenza is ns ..rampant as it has ever been. That.is. the opinion expressed, by local doctors, who liavo hardly found the days long enough during' the . last fow weeks to paying breathless visits to their multitudinous patients. Tho sable cloud has a-silver, or indeed a golden, liping for the medical profession, but there is- another class, besides the fevered invalids, who have been tried sorely. : A single Wollngton minister has fifty-livo sick people, on his list of calls, and ho can exact, no visiting fee. : . In fluenza is the most insidious of foes. Ho seldom kills his vistini himself; ho is the>dwarf who goes, before the giant. The'.viciqus ,little.bapill.ns entors into the system, tho discaso incubates 'in a remarkably short time, seeks out the victim's weakest, spot, and prostrates -him,- utterly, in 'time for the advance.of.. some, more'dreadful, adversary—bronchitis, 0r.... pneumonia, fellows of n. terrible class. The mortality list, founded on the doctors' formal certificate; says, "primacy, cause, of death pneumonia, secondary causo influenza. Saul,... not. David,"takes credit for tho tons v of. thousands'.' But in each case was-the first' blow. ". . ' ... . Worse than Cholera.';-, - It has been said that influenza,', while relatively less fatal, is absolutely more fatal than cholera.. ~,.0116 pf.,th.e., greatest English authorities on lilent'al diseases states :r-' 'I bclivo ho epidemic of any disease oii rccoM" b'hs : had sufcli. mental effects." It is : among the'ffioSt' vindictive of all .adversaries.' ■ Unlike most of the other atiVite specific diseases, it confers tio ''immunity"against' future' attacks.-: ' People' whri 'have been; blaming tho weather trt its long career: in Wellington . will bo surprised to loam that according""''to ' very best authority, tho •'th'e 'diS-' case is uncontrolled 'by' iseason or weather. ■ " •" '■

Theories of Cause, - Influenza is, Always 'with ,us,;; doctors, state, but it'! funs , amok'.' Then it deals such snvagoj>lows ;that ; people who have felt , it's milder ahgor cannot boliovo that this, is'the same foe. "Its outbreaks are so sudden and often so widespread," observes one"ex-. pert, "affecting., multitude's'at' one' and the samo moment, both'by se.V and land, as to suggest a ; miasmatic origin. . Viewed in this light, the micro-organisms concerned in!the pro; duction of tho.diseaso "nisy! jiossibly undergo multiplication - aiid "'•'development in tho atmosphcro itself."'.' Centuries Old. , Most peoplo think of influenza as a modern disease, ■-but it-is very old. Valiant old linights shook and shivered in their armours, when '"it 'spread through Italy, Germany, and England in the year 1173.- • Numerous ■ outbreaks subsequently-took plifco extending over one or -UVore countries ilntil 1847, in which year, disease*-became-generally diffused; over -tho'- Eastern Hemisphere. ' Epidemics occurred stilllater in 1850-51,. 1855, 1857-58;- and 1874-75,.- but happily' they missed' tho British .Isles,; So,; \yhcri .tho "Russian influenza" of 1889 swept westward over Europe, it camo'as a new and uhkilown foo to tho majority" of' tho physicians who went-out "with phial and bottle to meet it. "Later still it-reached-these islands, whero" it lias" raged': in' several epidemics, but ; never ■at a longer time or 'Avith worso virulence than at the present season.-, ■ increased Death-Rate., . Apropos of the. indirect 'mortality of.' this scourage, ,Dr... .G. .ArGib'son; Phy-, sician to the-Royal , Infirmary, Edin-. burgh, writes"lnfluenza is not directly a vory fatal disease. . In the epidemic of 184-7, the. death-rate was estimated at 2. per cent., of ,tlie-cases! observed in London.- It has .probably not boon higher iu the outbreaks, of 1889 and more'..recent ..years... 'Ail epir demio' of influenza, nevertheless, produces a startling and excessive increase in . the. death-rate. ~... !. According to the Registrar-General, Mr. England, tho deaths directly attributed to influenza in England and Wales during 1890 numbered"4s23, but ho estimates tho number of dbalis directly and indirectly due to it,at 27,000, equivalent to an annual .death-rate of almost ono per thousand.""'The subjects of heartdisease and phtjiisis die off like flies when attacked by this affection." It is of interest to know that the Bacillus influenzae has been isolated, and, when cultivated,grows .well . .in broth and on tho surfaco' of glycerin, agar at 37 degrees C. . - -...