Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-01-05
THE LATEST CRAZE.
Some Hard Facts About Influenza,
Its Spread and Effects.
La GRIPPE is RARELY FATAL,
Whether in the AristOcratic Russian
Form or as the
COMMON AMERICAN COLD IN THE HEAD.
rwRrrrEN FOR THE p1spArcH.1

| The American people are very impression
able. They like hobby of some kind, even
| if they have to go to Europe for it. Infu-
enza is now the craze over which they are
bubbling, and they are not satisfied with
| the ordinary American kind which would
satisfy an average person, but they must
have the Russian kind with French name
-"La Grippe" The oId-fashioncd kind
which we have all had, and which our
grandtathers had, and which was always
called ''cold in the head" accompanied by
neuralgia and rheumatic pains, are not
good enough, or rather bad enough, but
| whenever cold in the head develops the
patient of course has the Russian GRIPPE"
and at once lets go physically and becomes
Frustrated, for it is fashionable to be pros
trated if the sneeze occurs half dozen
times, and, in fact, it has become quite the
thing to have it anyhow. and to rub the
nose and eyes constantly and talk in loud
tone about it in the cars, on the
streets and everywhere else, ad nauseam. It
is true that it is not very pleasant thing
to have In any shape, but the idea that we
have any other disease among US than our
own old-fashioned influenza is folly.
There is probably no more influenza in
this neighb0rhood now than there is usually
at this time of year, with soft season such
as we have had. Foggy weather also causes
it, and sudden thaw, with its consequent
slush and wet pavements, will cause bad
colds, coughs, bronchitis and other bron-
chial troubles to as large an extent as this
wet season we are passing through.
NOT OFTEN FATAL.
Influenza is an italian word, meaning in
fuence.
1t is an epidemic catarrh, which is known
all over the Temperate Zone, wherever the
atmosphere is subject to sudden changes. IT
carries with it symptoms which are more or
less severe, according to the nature of the
case or the patient. It is very rarely fatal,
excepting when the patient is already suf-
tering from some bronchial disease or tuber-
culosis, or where the system is otherwise re-
duced by disease, when pneumonia is likely
to ensue.
In the months of October and November,
1889, and in April and May, 1890, and
again in the winters of 1926 and 1926 waves
of influenza passed all over the United |
States of an unusually severe character,
causing much suffering. Fear Of it was not |
so general as now, because communication
was very slow between distant points, hav- |
ing no telegraph in those days, and the peo-
pie did not get excited over it as they appear |
to do now.
Whole communities are attacked 10 few |
hours with this disease, causing the belief |
among various writers that it is connected |
in some mysterious way with certain condi- |
tions of the atmosphere or with some change |
in the electrical condition of the air and |
also to the presence of an excess of ozone in
the atmosphere.
Influenza runs across the country from
southeast to northwest, as cholera does. Cur
rents of air do not seem to have any infu-
ence on it, as it frequently travels against
them. If the Russian zymotic influenza is
any worse than the American kind and
1t should land in Philadelphia, for in
stance, in a remarkably short time
it would be in st. Paul and the whole North
west, and in this peculiar season, even in
Texas and New Mexico, which this winter
have taken their places among climates SUBJ
iect to sudden variations. This remarkable
faculty it has of travelling so rapidly as
against the general course OF the air makes
It resemble cholera, and from the fact that it
has on two occasions been followed during
The next summer by cholera, some wise ply
Iicians have had an idea that it might be
followed by the same disease next summer.
1t follows no more than smallpox follows
Whooping cough.