One hundred years ago
THE Influenza is reappearing in Europe. In Lemberg, in Galicia, it is reported that thirty thousand persons have been stricken by the pest, a num- ber which would suggest a contagious character for it, and is, we should hope, an exaggeration. It has also broken out with some severity in Edinburgh, and is certainly present in London, though in the cases we have heard of, the attacks have been less severe than last year. The medical profession has as yet hit on no method of prevention, the story that revaccination acts as a prophylactic requiring much more evidence. It is true that Prussian soldiers suffer compara- tively little, but that may be due to exer- cise or diet, or the sanitary state of the barracks. Many experienced men, we believe, still maintain that the disease is only a variety of "chill," formerly well known, and that the best precaution is warmth. Dr. Tuer reports in the Times that poor people, with their instinct for expressiveness, have taken to calling the disease "the blight."
The Spectator 28 November 1891
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