INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8157, 20 January 1890, Page 5

INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

London, January 17. From advices to hand from Paris and New York, the mortality from influenza does not appear to be increasing. The Princess Maud, who has been suffering from an attack of influenza, is now recovering. The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Times, writing on November 29, says:— The epidemic culled by the doctors influenza, apparently for want of a better name, continues to rage in St. Petersburg as strongly as ever, and even appears to be spreading over the country. Although it is said that a similar phenomenon occurred some 30 or 40 years ago, nothing- so general, so widespread and remarkable as the present disease has ever been experienced here before. From members of the Imperial Family and foreign ambassadors, through all classes, down bo workmen and beggars, no one escapes, from which it is naturally inferred to be infectious. It is not fatal, and lasts in most cases only a few days. Several Grand Dukes are affected, or just recovering, and the British Ambassador and the members of his staff are ne.irly all ill. Wherever one goes, in every house, in every family, somebody is sick. Forty-five men were taken ill in one day in the telegraph department; as many as 170 workmen in one factory ; while some mills and workshops have had to curtail work, take on hundreds of extra hands, or suspend operations altogether. In consequence of all this, St.. Petersburg is in a singular state of melancholy and depression, and "quite unfit to celebrate to-morrow the jubilee of Rubinstein and Russian music. Everybody is longing for frost and winter —the salvation of the unhealthy capital on the Neva ; but they do not come, except for a few hours at a time, and have rarely been so late in setting in as this autumn. From Moscow we hear that the disease is also making its appearance there, and a traveller just arrived from Tomsk, in Siberia, brings the same sorrowful tale. In St. Petersburg it is said that 40,000 cases are medically authenticated, which, of course, does not include all who have suffered or are still sußering. Some authorities identify the malady with the Dengue fever prevalent in Greece and Turkey. The symptoms are fever and headache, accompanied by a running cold.