Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1918-10-23
PEAK OF DISEASE
WAVE SEEMS OVER
ENTIRE NATION IN GRIP.

A study OF the news Q1SpaLCneS
from the various parts of the coun-
try shows that the influenza epidem-
ic has the entire country in it's grip.
Evidently not a town or Village in
America is free f. ON its effects and
the disease has even manifested it.
self in far-away Hawaii and South
America.
The disease is unlike previous cpl
denies in that pneumonia is heavily
attendant. Bowel complaints fire.
quently follow the disease and in
some cases form of paralysis. In
the army camps the greater number
of cases are in evidence. This is no
doubt due to the close contact of the
thousands of boys in training.
DR.. F. J. Ridge, u. S. Medical Corps,
an authority on influenza treatment,
says that atropine has proven most
effective as a remedy. In an address
at Milwaukee last week DR.. Ridge
said:
II don't know of an epidemic that
touches the mortality of the one now
raging in this country. | have been
through cholera, bubonic and typhoid
plaques, but this beats them ALL
said the doctor. 1--WE can expect 20
to 80 per cent of the population of
Milwaukee to be stricken of whom 20
per cent will contract pneumonia, OF
which number the mortality rate will
be about per cent.
eff you have an influenza case put
the patient to bed, end keep him
there until he has had a normal tenn
perature for at least five days. 1t is
after the first fever has been broken
that the patient is in danger. My
recommendation for the treatment of
this disease is atropine in almost
criminal Doses Statistics from abroad
showed us that we could expect a
large rate of mortality, so when the
epidemic struck us at Great Lakes, we
tried every remedy recommended to
US, as long as we knew they were
harmless. Finally we tried atropine,
and found that if we got them early
enough it was the most effective.
II do not believe in my heart this
epidemic is Influenza At the Great
Lakes men have been wheeling rock
in the morning, feeling fine, and at
$3.50 that night they were dead. We
hit upon the idea of detecting the
cases by taking temperatures daily,
and we found in the majority of the
cases that the men felt fine, and al
most had to be driven to the hospi-
tai.
Unlike Former Cases.
"There were no headaches, no
backaches, no boneaches, nor any of
the aches so common to influenza.
Men who had been begging to be al
lowed to get up and return to their
companies, were dead within two
hours. The cases all showed a rise
in temperature of from 1031a to 104,
some with chills and some without.
The one predominating symptom we
found to be nose bleeds. There was
often consolidation in the right lower
lung, but it differed from any type of
pneumonia | have ever seen, in that
it cleared up so rapidly that you
could hardly realize that it had been
detected the day before. Deaths were
not caused by heart failure, but by
blood stasis in the pulmonary spac-
es, probably the result of some virus
like diphtheria.
"A similar plague swept over the
world in 1S89-'90 and 81, and pneu-
monia is still epidemic in northern
Siberia. There is no such a thing
as air contraction and in all cases
scarlet fever, diphtheria and other So
called contagious diseases are con-
tracted from sneezing or coughing in
close proximity, or from some other
form of eXcretia.'
That smokers were not unusually
affected by the disease, was the dec
laration of Lieut.. Ridge. He stated
that in the naval hospital practically
all of the doctors and nurses smoked
cigarets and that of three of the doc
tors stricken with the disease, two
did not use tobacco.
The death toll for the army camps
to last Thursday was 12,340. Inf1u-
enza cases since Sept. IA, when the
disease first appeared in New Eng
land, have been 62,186. Pneumonia
cases have been 59,276.
The death toll in the large cities
last week was heavy. In Philadel-
phia 1897 died; New York 979; Bos-
ton $50, and Chicago 571. 6,122
deaths were reported from the entire
country last week.
In Wisconsin the heaviest leath
rate among civilians has been at Ke-
nosha. In one factory $50 workmen
were taken i'll. Fifty people died in
u hours. Nearly every home has a
case or more. Milwaukee has had
$3.50 cases reported with 154 deaths.
Madison has had 43 deaths. Smaller
towns have had from one to five or
more deaths.
Many small towns have escaped
with a few cases of sickness. In
Lancaster prompt measures were TAX
en- to prevent an epidemic and the
people may thank the city govern
ment for its quickness in meeting a
threatened disaster