One hundred years ago
AN EPIDEMIC of influenza has appeared in Russia, Germany, Austria, and France, and it is feared it may spread to England also. In St Peters- burg and Vienna it has attacked all classes, and in Paris six hundred em- ployes were disabled by it at the same time in one shop. The attack is not directly mortal in any case, but it weakens feeble constitutions, and leaves an increased liability to bronchi- tis and pneumonia. It is, however, the method of transmission which makes the disease so interesting to medical men. It appears to be certain that it has attacked fleets and ships when cut off from communication with the shore, and therefore that, however generated, it is propagated through the air. That fact supports a theory, maintained by many observers, that some of the great epidemics are due to poisonous vapours travelling through the air, and indepen- dent of our sanitary laws. Dr Jessopp, we notice, in his remarkable papers on the Black Death, which slew half Eng- land in 1348, inclines to believe that no other theory will so completely meet the facts. He is not a physician, of course; but he had made a patient and exhaus- tive study of the records of this terrible epidemic, and his opinion is corrobo- rated by that of many scientific author- ities.
The Spectator, 14 December 1889
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