One hundred years ago
THE INFLUENZA is spreading rapid- ly in London, but is worst in Yorkshire, where it has made havoc in Sheffield as well as in many of the Eastern towns and villages. In Sheffield there were fifty-five deaths in one week from it, and the bank-clerks in some of the Yorkshire towns are required to take two doses of quinine a day as a prophy- lactic against the attack. Where it has broken out, it has assumed a good many of the characteristics of intermittent fever, with rapidly alternating heats and shiverings; and against all attacks of that kind — which suggest malaria — quinine is, we suppose, by far the best remedy. One of the most characteristic effects of influenza is the extreme debil- ity and depression which it appears to produce, and the tendency to relapse. Severe winters are usually supposed to strike down the weak and aged, but to diminish the risk of illness amongst the young and strong. In this case, howev- er, it is not so, for influenza has certainly raged even more seriously amongst the young and strong than amongst the sick and feeble. The Spectator, 2 May 1891
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