[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District].
- St. Giles (London, England). District Council.
- Date:
- [1896]
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
102/136 page 96
![96 A Provisional Memorandum upon Precautions advisable at times when Epidemic Influenza threatens, or is prevalent, was also drawn up by me in January, 1892, and was issued by tbe Board to local Sanitary Authorities. The further study made by the Medical Department as to the natural history of influenza, and as to its clinical and bacteriological characteristics, goes to show that it is a disease against which it is most difficult to apply measures of prevention with any substantial prospect of success. Influenza is highly infective from person to person; its infectious quality is often manifested before the disease is fully recognised; its incubation period is one of the shortest of all infectious diseases; it varies so much in intensity that many cases are never diagnosed at all; one attack confers no marked immunity against another; and the infection is largely eliminated by means of the lungs, the sputa of the sick being invariably charged, during the acute stage] of the disease, with its pathognomonic micro-organism. The disease calls primarily for measures of isolation and of disinfection, but there are difficulties in making any measures universally applicable. Wherever they can be carried out, the following precautions should, however, be adopted:— 1.—The sick should be separated from the healthy. This is especially important in the case of first attacks in a locality or a household. 2.—The sputa of the sick should, especially in the acute stage of the disease, be received into vessels containing disinfectants. Infected articles and rooms should be cleansed and disinfected. 3.—When influenza threatens, unnecessary assemblages of persons should be avoided. 4.—Buildings and rooms in which many people necessarily congregate should be efficiently aerated and cleansed during the intervals of occupation. It should be borne in mind that the liability to contract influenza, and also the danger of an attack, if contracted, are increased by depressing conditions, such as exposure to cold, and to fatigue whether mental or physical. Attention should hence be paid at epidemic](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b19875897_0102.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
