The Republican journal., 1916-05-25
A COMPOSITE DISEASE.
of a Victim of The Grip.

have written few articles that have
been commended by Observer readers
and have noticed that those on subjects
coming closest to the lives of the readers
have been most heartily commended. My
subject this time must appeal to more
people than | have ever reached before,
| for it is Grip.
1t will be noticed that do not embel
fish it with "la" and final "pe";
have SO little respect for the disease that
| spell it in the least respectful way pos
sible. feel as Frank Pixley, then editor
of the San Francisco Argonaut, used to
towards the Dem cratic boss of that city.
Generally he would adorn his name with
the customary capital letters, but when
politics were running high he expressed
his low opinion of him by the use of small
letters entirely. Many years later a
Maine paper treated Henry N Pringle
in the same way.
But to get back to the grip. l can re-
call two attacks of the disease several
years ago to which l gave little thought,
but for some reason have given the at
tack Of last March considerable thought
and have decided that grip is composite
disease because it has characteristics Pc
culiar to all the ills to which flesh is heir,
| at lcdSl oil IudI NY llSSIl las be0u ACi W.
To begin: The suddenness of the at
tack reminded me of my first attack of
cholera morbus. I went to bed on that
occasion apparently well and awoke early
in the morning so sick that it required
physician and big dose of morphine to
keep me alive to tell the story. And
so it was with the attack of grip of
which write thought at noon that
| was making an excellent recovery
from a cold; in the middle of the after
noon / began to feel badly and by night
| was too sick to eat supper.
Now for the symptoms and their SIM
ilarity to previous experiences. had
sick stomach which reminded me of the
times when | was small ana used to visit
distant relative distant mile), during
the season of ripe pomegranates. L felt
that | must eat enough of the plums to
last year but after attempting that
feat | would have a stronger feeling that
| had overdone the matter, and when L
| had got out of sight of the house on my
way home would find relief in the usua
way.
was also so drowsy from the grip that
| SLEPT all the evening, which reminded
me of another boyhood experience. On
that occasion | had been raspberrying
tired and very hungry. The family had
dined on "boiled dinner" and got at the
relics and ate so much that / went to
sleep and my mother had great difficulty
in getting me awake to undress and go to
bed in due form.
After sleeping on couch all the eve
ming on this night of the grip reused up
and went to bed, but my legs ached so
badly that had to get up and sit over
hot air register for some time. And that
ache reminded me of the aches l used to
have when small boy, aches that would
| bring tears, and my mother to rub my
| legs.
{ | also had pain and lameness in my
neck and shoulders such as used to result
from too free use of bucksaw at the
beginning of the open time OH that i'm
| plement.
| had chills up and down my spine and
shaking spells, snch as | used to have
preliminary to ''speaking piece In
school, or later in life, when | was asked
to present candid ite's name in con-
vention or second nomination, or intro
duce speaker at political, or other
meeting.
The headache that was part of the
| program might be compared with things
/ too numerous to mention.
got through my night of the grip,
stayed in the house the next day, which
was Sunday, and got onto my job Monday
morning, but was not yet done with old
| experiences. The disease had left me
with a tender place down the center of
my chest Which reminded me of lame
ness | got in that same spot from ringing
a church bell when | was boy In Gar
| land
The slownesg of recovery reminded me
not only of the cholera morbus, when it
took ME week to get over few hours
illness, but OF typhoid fever which got
me when | was a child. There is, how
ever, one great difference between the
grip and the fever; the grip left me with
little appetite while the fever left me
with one so great that it seemed that the
clock must have stopped. so slowly APP
I preached the time to eat again.
have told in feeble way my expert
ence with this composite disease but 1t
would not be possible for one person to
describe it in its fulness, for every person
who has had it can give an experience
different from that of every other person.
An argument on the subject would be
much like that of the two men who had
seen a chameleon, as described in the old
reading book with which some of the
readers of this article were familiar. -
Liston P. Evans, in the Piscataquis OBJ
server.