THE INFLUENZA.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—An interesting question has been raised in your columns on the comparative liability of rich and poor to the influenza. On March 11th a correspondent quoted Lord Beaconsfield to show that high living was the true prophylactic; those who could command turtle and champagne were to be the truly blessed. In the Spectator of March 25th you remarked, as I believe with much better foundation, that "people who are well nourished and warmly clothed suffer as frequently as the poor." Might not this be put even more strongly? In every direction we hear of " upper-class " families being attacked ; the disease seems to revel in butlers, footmen, and such like ; and it does not spare their masters and mistresses, notwithstanding eucalyptus and other nostrums. On the other hand, as far as my experi- ence goes, it does not spread in the slums ; if one member of a family is seized, the rest generally go free, although husband, wife, and children are all crammed together. It may doubtless be urged forcibly that we hear more of the rich, who are not always silent sufferers, and take pains to inform us of their exact condition in the papers and otherwise ; a bad cold running through the house sometimes leads them into imaginative terrors. The poor, accustomed to an undertone of health, do not cry out so loudly. However, it would be a great thing to get some reliable statistics, and if these should show that the Beaconsfields of the world so far from being exempt, are specially liable to be scourged by influenza, it would be a fresh puzzle to the doctors and other sanitary experts. And it would be a great comfort to know that for this turn the poor had the best of it.—I am, Sir, dm, J. H. T.
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