The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-01-06
CHEER UP, FOLKS! PHYSICIANS SEE GRIPS FOE HERE Cold Wave, on Way to City, WiutRout the Busy Germs,
 They Promise. MORE THAN 10000 IN THIS CITY HIT Doctors Say That One Out of Every Three Families Has
 Felt Disease.

Cheer up sad hearts and cease re-
 pining- Behind each cloud is the sun
 still shining The grip pandemic- l it's "a pandeuic now, not an epidemic is expected to flee into the Atlantic Ocean, hard followed by a, cold wave that is sweeping southwestward and which is now almost on the thresho old of Bridgeport
 Un1e$s all signs and indications. observed by medical authorities and
 weather prophets fail, the grip, or la
 grippe, or influenza or lightning ca taTrh or b1ttz-catarrh, as the case may be and one chooses, will be wiped
 out before Sunday. The cold wave that is nerrfly rushing hither is ex- pected to do great execution among the germs of grip and for every ill., ness that has been caused by the lit 1 tie pests a few million of them will de- part this life.
 That's the belief of competent med fca1 authorities, although some differ
 with them. The believers assert that Brfdgeporters may cheer up as the
 Weather Man has sent the following A moderate cold wave prevailed today and will continue tonight and Friday from the Mississippi river east
 ward to the Atlantic coast, the cold extending southwest toward the gulf
 states.
 The cold. they say. will cause the death of the germs. Others declare
 that this is not so. but that pneu-
 monia increase may be looked for.
 It is conservatively estimated that
 13,0 ,06Q persons in Bridgeport have been i'll with grip alone since the ill.,
 ness became an epidemic, just before becoming a panden1ic-
 Dr. E A. Mcclellan, health officer, G7a z1fd a say that one of every three families in Bridgeport has been hit by the Kil1- ness. TfIe said he wouldn't dispute
 anybody who says 10000 have been i'll. Today is the 18th day since the
 trouble started. During that time 1t
 has swept aver Bridgeport, in com
 mon with other cities in the United
 States. Detroit and Cleveland have
 5000 cases each, according to Surgeon SGeneral Blue of the United States Public Health Service.
 Seventy four persons died last week in New York directly of grip. Its ef-
 fects may be judged from the fact that the normal average death rate is 14o every week. Last week it was nearly double or 282.
 ftals have many persons suffering from
 grip. So many are dying in this city
 that there is a scarcity of hacks. One of the remarkable things about grip. whic his true about a pandenaic of any kind is that in proportion to its increase, other illnesses fall off Thus, in Bridgeport, diphtheria and scarlet fever are almost non-existent, and the same condition is prevalent throughout the Middle West Thucydides tells of the plague in Athens in 400 B. c. and recorded the
 strange fact that there was no other disease among the Athenians
 Grip has oppressed civilized men at various times always, but it was | not until the last quarter of 8 century thai It became a permanent visitor It is recorded that, prior to 1889, grip 1 swept over the world in cycles of 30 Years. Records show that Europe felt
 it's effects in the 30's and again in the l sos but each time it disappeared ut ter1y.
 In 1889. however, the disease swept from Siberia into Russian Europe. then
 to Germany and other Continental countries, thence to the United States. Since then it has been steady
 boarder in the United States. It had l been here before t>1at but never was
 recognized and soon left. The per
 manency of it's call is attributed by medical experts to the fact that mod ern man travels so much and trans
 portation is so easy and far reaching. | Whereas in former times, the grip, on 8 visit, generally died with it's hosts because of lack of material. modern
 man carries the germ about with him l and scatters them in all corners. | The Germans called it lightning ca tarrh ,or b1itz- -catarrh, which is the
 same thing. The French call it Ia
 grippe and the Americans grip, and longer but uglier words. Medical men call it influenza, which is a poorer
 name than grip, interested ones say,
 as it indicates griping pains Grip is the old Saxonized German name for tn @
 illness but modern Germans have for
 gotten it.