Volume 1

Annals of influenza, or epidemic catarrhal fever in Great Britain, 1510-1837 / prepared and edited by Theophilus Thompson.

  • New Sydenham Society
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annals of influenza, or epidemic catarrhal fever in Great Britain, 1510-1837 / prepared and edited by Theophilus Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    orders, the usual effect of cold, seized great numbers of all sorts of people in Dublin, In some of the persons so affected, the symptoms were more severe, and attended with somewhat more fever, headache, and intolerance of light. This epidemic, as it then appeared, was not attended with many fatal results, and in general the persons recovered without any treatment; the disease usually terminating in a critical diaphoresis. The duration of the distemper was in the mild cases from eight to ten days, and in the more obstinate ones, about a fortnight. So very general did this influenza rage, that few or none escaped. It spared neither rank, age, sex, nor condition; but it rather favoured the very old, who seldom were attacked with it. This disease ran its course in about a month, but it was not confined to Dublin alone; London and Oxford were visited by it. It appeai’ed in London about a month sooner than in Ireland; and it likewise progressed through France, Holland, and Flanders.^ [For several successive years after 1675, fevers prevailed in England, and there was much disturbance in atmospheric con- ditions. The Winter of 1680 was intensely cold, the subse- quent Summer excesswely hot. In the Spring and Summer of 1681, herbs and grass were burnt up for want of moisture in the air. The frost of 1683 was almost unprecedented, that of 1684 almost equally severe. In the Spring of 1685, an immense flight of grasshoppers in Languedoc laid waste the corn, then attacked vines, pulse, willows, and hemp. In 1686 was a terrific hail storm. 1687 was characterised by rain, inundations, abundant fruit, and great swarms of gnats and other insects. Diarrhoea was remarkably fatal, first in the suburbs of London, especially amongst children. On the 10th of October occurred the Earthquake which over- threw the city of Lima. In 1688, there was an Earthquake in Jamaica, and a Hurricane at Sea.] We find (resuming the narrative of Dr. Short^) that at the middle of ^lay, began a fever in London, all over England and all over Ireland in July. The symptoms were the same in all. It began and ended its course in seven weeks. It seldom * Dr. Molyneux, ‘ Philos. Trans. Dub./ March, 1694. ^ Op. cit,, vol. I, p. 455.