INFLUENZA RAMPANT.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11248, 11 April 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

INFLUENZA RAMPANT.

London was stricken with influenza when the last mail left England. Official returns showed that the deaths directly due to influenza jumped from 25 to 84 m 'three weeks. Bronchitis, with 231 deaths] and consumption with 106, wero the only other more, fatal diseases* Not only did it spread r&pidly, but it took on a much more malignant form.' Before Christmas many oi the cases presented symptoms , resembling a low grade of typhoid fever. Continuous dull headache, with great lassitude and slight but persistent rise of temperature^ were prominent symptoms." During January the nervous type became- promihent—«plitt|inc headache, with severe pains jn back and limbs, causing complete prostration. Then came the ordinary type of the- disease, m which the mucous membranes o.f the nose, throat, and lungs arc chiefly attacked. This was tho commonest type of case m London at latest advices, and . as it is the most deadly, tho in-' crease iii the death-rate was accounted for.: Tho. Daily .Express estimated that about 20Q,000 people m and Wound London were suffering from the disease. Business, of, course, suffered most; serious inconvenience. Some large establishments had as many a s 200 men oh the sick list, and firms foiuid that it was impossible to rely with any certainty on work being done, for a maji instrudted to do' something) might fall suddenly ill m the middle of his. task. The. question Jia» arisen, again whether influenza, is infectious or contagious, 'or simply, The papers publish . warnings about the spread of infection, .but'somo experts believe that the disease Ms not, caught .from .stricken people, but that a large, number of people are attacked' independontly. ■ Fortunately, 'the treatment is: very simple, rest m- bed. being, the only real essential. "Quinine m many cases will, if > taken at <>nee, shorten the Attack, but nothing do away 'with the jieceseity for" thp" patient's beintf l; m bed. If 'this fdc.t ■;>*ss, thoroughly' known aiid approciated, iiiiluenza would at once become a harmless -and trifling ailment. -When a man feels iiifluenzd. coinihig oii'he should go to .bed at xinqe and take tho most stringent precautions to avoid any draughts or exposure, which might lead up to those most deadly complications of influenza^ — hroiichitis ai]d pneumonia." Such is a London doctor's advice.