Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1916-01-13
ny WOODS HUTCHINSON, NJ. d.

One touch Of sneczius makes the whole
world kin. Even in this tp,,c Of world
shaking Arn,arcddons aud lettering
thrones and quiycung national credits
the burning question Of the day every
where, upon the street In the cars, a.
public assemblies Is. "tavc YOU got it,"
! In fact 80 nearly simultaneously does
the question rise TO our lips Whenever we
meet a friend. that tho greeting is almost
/ antiphonal or responsive like tho Christ
mas salutotions In RUSS a-opc solutort
Swing haH and the other the second
/ half. or the cheerful Colt strafc" vocal
epidemic which h now rasing in Central
| Europe.
There Is even sort OF consola don
about its ubiqwty because misery dearly
does love company. and among tie minor
pleasures OF life and most popular indoor
| sports not the least T. the cheerful SYM
pathetic swapping Of symptoms
One, however. Of the consp cuots CON
solutions which we give ourselves about
II Is pure illusion, ana that Is that there
is anything modern ar recherche and up
to-date about a.
on the contrary IL Is Of most rc-
spectacle, not to say venerable. antiquity:
many OF our good things are now. but
most of our Ills arc old. very old
World epidemics OF tho grip uudcr
various names have boon clearly rccor-
nized ever since the fourteenth century.
and would probably have boon so earlier
had medical and official reporters been
sufficiently intelligent
Its very name, influenza. goes hack to
the middle ages and embnlms tho popu-
lar Italian belief that it was due to the
malignant Influence" OF star. or a
comet or some other OF tho heavenly
bodies on account Of the rapldity and uni
versatility OF Its spread
At least four clear-cut and world on
oiroling epldemcs Of Il have been r., 70
corded In the nineteenth century. as well
as many minor and local ones the ,ass
Of which was in 1SS9-sO. with several
echoes and secondary reverberations IT.
the decade following The earliest OF the
four Is sand 10 have put the armies or
both Napolean and Wellington in the
Peninsular campaign practically out or
business for several weeks and to have
attacked and FRUSTRATED nearly a thirl
OF the population OF the Spanish PENN
sula within four or five days
It's origin now Is fairly clear and II no
more heavenly than are the sensations
which II produces. II does not come down
from above in any sense but up from
below, from dirt; plain, stewy. sweaty
rsteaming human dirt, the kind that
comes from overcrowding and infrequcnt
ablutions and perpetual seething in the
steam OF other peoples breath
Like many other things good and bad
II comes from the east. Tho earlier great
epidemics always started in Russia and
| In the remotest and most easterIy pro-
vinces at that, so that in the seventeen
and eighteen hundreds II was known as
the Russian influenza"
This. however. was an injustice to the
great white empire for little invev-
tigatlon quickly showed that il came into
Russia with the tea caravans from west.
ern China. Western China had caught Il
from central, and finally It was traced
back TO that great soothing human stew
and hive, the Yangste-Kiang VALLEY.
Here or in the swelterlng race slums
to the south start all our great world
pestilences which we are able to trace
TO their beginning. the black death
smallpox and cholera. and It Is also be-
lieved to be the native home OF typhoid
tuberculosis and pneumonia. This Is the
real yellow peril. and the conviction il
steadily growing among sanitarians that