Influenza, or, Epidemic catarrhal fever : an historical survey of past epidemics in Great Britain from 1510-1890 / by E. Symes Thompson.

Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Influenza, or, Epidemic catarrhal fever : an historical survey of past epidemics in Great Britain from 1510-1890 / by E. Symes Thompson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    was mucli greater than during the preceding week, and all the while a few convalescents were returning daily. The third week showed a still greater number of men leaving, this increase corresponding to a similar increase in the number of men coming back to the place. It may therefore be said that so long as the epidemic was on the increase in the factory, the number of men falling ill was proportional to tlie mcmher of convalescents coming lack to work It may be also noticed that the number of men leaving was greater than that of men coming back. During the fourth week the epidemic abated almost com- pletely, and it can be noticed that the tabulated results show an inverse proportion, between the number of men coming back and that of men leaving, to what had taken place before. It was noticed that at the onset the cases were of greater duration than those that followed. The average duration of the cases beginniag during the first week was from 7 to 10 days, whUe the average duration of the cases beginning during the second and third weeks was from 3 to 5 days, and during the next week the average fell to 2-1- days. He showed by diagrams that when one of the workshops belonging to a set of four or of two was much affected, one, two, or three of the others were much affected also. On the con- trary, some groups of workshops were but little affected. The fact that the men were constantly meeting on the staircases and elsewhere rendered it impracticable to follow the con- taion further—if contagion there be. No connection could be shown to exist between the number of men employed in each ]Dlace and the amount of Ulness, nor did there appear to be any relation between the kind of work and the amount of illness, except that while the clerks were the first to be attacked, the metal workers and the men employed in the mill were comparatively little affected, and the engineers, stokers, carpenters, carmen, etc., escaped altogether. Under normal circumstances, the number of men absent from the factory through illness is seldom above six during the week at this time of the year. Duriug the month of January, however, this number rose gradually to 5, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15, 22, 25, 29, 34, 38, till it reached 40 in one day. Besides these men, a few suffered as usual from