Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-12-29
LOOK OUT FOR La GRIPPE.
He Has Captured Europe and is Trave
ing Westward From New York.

He Has Captured Europe and is Travel
ing Westward From New York.
PARIS, December 2Sth.-Tc-day all Eu,
rope is the victim Of an epidemic and the
most interesting subject discussed at the
present time is the deDgue fever Here
the first symptom is a high fever, with
chills, pain in the head, back and limbs so
severe that the patient groans and even
| screams in his agony. 1t is almost impcs-
sible to open the eyes because of weakness
of muscles, and the tongue is brown and
sometimes black with red edges. Every
one efflicted with dengue fever has dis
taste FOR all kinds of nourishment, solid or
| liquid. At the end of three or four days
an eruption appears. Sometimes this re-
sembles scarlet fever and sometimes the
measles.
II the case be a severe one the fever con-
tinues ten or even fifteen days. but usually
the patient is convalescent at the end of the
sixth day. However, convalescency is very
slow, and for days, even weeks, one who
has passed through the depgue fever can
not eat and has hardly strength enough to
speak. In Russia the people are in a
state of fright, as Moscow, Warsaw and St.
Petersburg are all afflicted with the cpl
demic. The hospitals of Vienna are filled
with dengue patients, and at Spandau in
powder factories are suffering from the
fever.
Tie germs of the disease were brought
in oriental carpets designed by Louvre
dry goods house for the January exhibition.
For days the secret was kept, because dur
ing the holidays all these large establish
ments gain immense sums of money
Acknowledgment would be utter defeat
and ruin for the entire season, and only
when 700 employees were confined to their
houses with an inexplicable disease, did the
public know what disagreeable guest had
reached Paris. To-day there are thousands
of victims in the city. Every school and
almost every public institution counts from
twenty to 500 patients. Nearly every per-
son who has been to the Louvre to make
purchases during the past week now pays
for such rashness by suffering from the dem
que fever. The Louvre melady has spread
through Paris. Several Deputies are attacked
and there is serious talk of closing the
Chamber. Nine. de Freycinet and Nine de
Guyot are both victims, and the reporters
who have been making inquiries for their
journals, are experiencing the horrors of
deDgue fever.
At the Department of Posts and Tele-
graphs, on Rue du Grenelle, are employed
500 men and 420 women. To-day 800 are
absent. The Polytechnic School is closed
for two or three days. because more than
half the pupils are ill, and the presence of
the dengue fever has just been declared at
the School of High Commercial Studies.
Lycee Condorcet has sixty cases, and it is
proposed to close the school for time At
the Lycee Saint Louis eighty pupils and a
number of professors are in the school hos
pital.
In the Department of Marine the en-
ployes are panic-stricken. Many already
have the disease. One who was well yes
terday, as he put on his hat to return
home, suddenly fell on the stones of the
courtyard a victim of deDgue Saint Cyr,
the great military school, is closed, and
the pupils are cared for in hospital, and no
outsider is allowed to approach the build
ing. Other large establishments would do
well to follow the example of Saint Cyr,
but the French learn only from bitter ex-
perience. The physicians appointed by
the Government 10 investigate have GER
tainty considered the disease with no little
attention. What to-day may be simple
indisposition tomorrow may be plague.
The eminent English physician, Sir
Oscar Jennings, who is now in this city
studying the epidemic of influenza which
is affecting Paris, has been interviewed as
10 the result Of his observations. He de-
scribes the influenza as kind of bastard
pulmonary rheumatism, which is probably
caused by microbe in the atmosphere.
He says that the disease is inft ctious and
not contagious. 1t cannot, he says, be con-
veyed by means of the breath of an infected
person to any one else. To cure the COM
plant Dr. Jennings recommends small and
frequent doses of quinine and antipyrine
to be administered. The quiDine kills the
microbes and the antipyrine allays the
pain which accompanies the disease.