25 MARCH 1899, Page 3

The influenza pest is raging again in London, the deaths

having risen to nearly 150 a week, and every paper re- cording fresh lista of well-known persons who have been "laid up," which means knocked down by an attack quite as severe as the extinct attacks of ague, and much more dangerous, According to a reporter of the Daily Hail, who visited all the leading hospitals, the visitation is not so severe this year as it has been, but has been more independent of sanitary conditions, Highgate. for instance, which is exceptionally healthy. having greatly suffered. From what we hear we should say that the sequelaa of the disease, and especially the cruel depression it causes, were as distressing as ever, and that there has been an unusual number of cases of influenza attacking the eyes. The eyes grow first bloodshot, then watery, and then acutely painful, and seem quite beyond the effect of any lotion what- ever. This is noted also by the house-surgeon at Guy's. There is no hint of a cure as yet, or of any system of preven- tion, people who are well nourished and warmly clothed suffering as frequently as the poor. The spread of the disease is said to be discreditable to the doctors, but they have never cured colds, which have some relation, though an obscure one, to influenza. One of these days, in spite of science, we shall have an epidemic, possibly spread by the water, which means death, and then we shall see things.