Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-12-21
About the Influenza.

The London Times says of the prevailing in
fuenZa:
There is much to be said in favor Of the
common belief that all catarrhal 'maladies are
liable to be produced, or at least to be aggra-
vated by the effect of cold upon the surface Of
the body. This knowledge points to the use of
plenty OF Undertaking, which affords warmth
without undue weight, as well as to the desir-
abeness of breathing through the nostrIls, so
that the air may be warmed and filtered in
their winding passages before it is suffered to
enter the chest. Many an old gentleman has
contracted his last bronchitis from standing at
street corner, In Indictment weather, to talk
and laugh with friend, thus filling his lungs
with volumes of cold md dirty air. drawn
directly through the widely opened mouth into
the respiratory passages"
There was an epidemic Of influenza in Eng
Land in 1888 and the Times remarks:
almost Immediately following the first an
pearance OF Asiatic cholera in England, was
remarkable as having conceded with the COM
mencement of time in which the old practice
of taking blood from the arm in great variety
OF complaints began to lose ground in the esti-
nation OF observant men; and there seems
little doubt that from and after the period re-
ferred to there occurred a more or less definite
change in what has been called the type OF dis
ease, a change in which symptoms Of depres-
sion of the powers of life were more conspicu-
Gus than symptoms of inflammation, and which
practitioners who were careful to husband and
sustain, rather than to depress. the vital ener-
gies of their patients. A very fall and careful
account of the metropolitan epidemic Of I847
has been preserved by the late DR.. Peacock, and
in this epidemic. which commenced in November
and was extremely fatal, the evidences of de-
preston were universally conspicuous.
The present system of registration of
the causes of death, although not long
introduced and still hindered by many
difficulties, was actually in operation; and in
the course of the six months during which the
disease either prevailed or fingered the deaths
attributed to it in London amounted to /. 739,
from which number it was estimated that about
a quarter of million Of the inhabitants had
been attacked. Moreover, during the sir
weeks in which the epidemic was at its height
not less than five thousand persons died in the
metropolitan districts in excess of the ordinary
mortality OF the period, thus justifying the be-
lief that many other ailments had been has
tened to an unfavorable termination by the
superaddition OF influenza. The diffusion has
usually been Of such kind as to preclude tho
probability of infection from person to person
and to suggest the operation Of some general
and widely diffused cause. 1t has been OBJ
served, moreover, that the epidemics have
usually conceded with periods Of increased
prevalence Of other disorders, such as the va
rious forms of fever; but, unfortunately, at the
date OF the last prevalence, in l847, the differ
ences between these forms were not under
stood, and nothing was certainly known Of the
natural history or methods Of diffusion Of any
Of them"