Report on the influenza epidemic of 1889-90 / by Dr. Parsons ; with an introduction by the medical officer of the local government board.

  • Parsons, H. Franklin (Henry Franklin), 1846-1913
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the influenza epidemic of 1889-90 / by Dr. Parsons ; with an introduction by the medical officer of the local government board. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    came over its tactics till in the first week in January not a single public ofBce or dwelling-place was spared. The towns suffered earlier than the provincial districts. By the last week in January the cases of illness which previously occurred en masse suddenly ceased to do so, and only isolated cases were recorded. The authors are of opinion that the exciting cause of the malady multiplied within the human body and wandered from place to place in sympathy with the coming and going of people. It was not, however, merely transferred from man to man, but after being deposited in a locality by patients it could maintain itself independently of these, and under specially favourable conditions, such as the great drought which prevailed during the period mentioned, could proceed to infect others. Persons who kept exclusively or a great deal to their apartments were scarcely touched by the Influenza, while those who led an outdoor life, or moved freely in and out, were seldom spared. In Heligoland (then a British possession, but since transferred to Germany), Dr. Lindemaur, Colonial physician, reports that two children of 5 to 6 years old had in the beginning of November 1889 what were afterwards said to have been attacks of Influenza, but that no further cases occurred until the beginning of December, when the first undoubted cases occurred in the first (highest) class at the school, among children 10 to 14 years old, and by the end of December the whole of the first class had been affected ; the second and third classes following in January, and the fourth in February. Adults suffered in January and February. About half of the inhabitants are estimated to have suffered. Dr. Lindemaur considers that if the two cases in November were really Influenza, the disease must have come over by the air, and not been brought by a patient, for at that time the disease had only just begun in Hamburg, the only place with which the Island is in communication, viz , by a mail twice weekly ; and there were then very few people coming to Heligoland. (It seems doubtful, however, whether the two cases in November were Influenza, and on the supposition of a wind-borne miasm being present in the general atmosphere, one would have expected more than two persons to have been affected. Moreover it is stated by Dr. Lindemaur tliat the winds during November and December were almost entirely from the west.) The disease afterwards appeared to spread by infection. Switzerland. On December 26th numerous cases of Influenza had occurred among the visitors at Davos and St. Moritz, in the Engadine, and on December 31st it was said that every other person at St. Moritz was suffering. It was considered that the disease was highly infectious, and that it could hardly have come by the atmosphere, the place being surrounded by snow-mountains. On January 5th the epidemic was reported as general throughout Switzerland. Avstria-Hungary. The first case of Influenza observed in Vienna was on November 30th. On December 10th its presence in an epidemic form was asserted, though denied next day by the Chief Medical Officer of the Vienna Board of Health. At the same date it had also appeared in Lemberg, Cracow, Bruenn, and several smaller Galician towns. On December ]3th 25 per cent, of the pupils in several public schools had been attacked.
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