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99
1911
INFLUENZA.
There were 37 deaths registered from influenza, or 35 fewer than the
average which obtained during the twelve preceding years. The deaths were
also only one more than those which occurred in 1910. The disease, as we have
known it recently, would not be of much consequence, were it not that it is
the cause of many other ailments, which so frequently prove fatal. Thus
during last year in 14 instances the determining causes of death were pneumonia,
in 11 heart failure, in 5 bronchitis, and in 2 meningitis. Indeed, meningitis
is among the less common lesions which are sometimes proved to be influenzal;
and, therefore, when under treatment it might be well for physicians to
examine the cerebro-spinal fluid for the bacillus influenza so as to establish the
diagnosis. A recent writer in the Journal of Clinical Research, says:—" That
in some fatal cases the inflammation has not been confined to the meninges, but
has affected the brain substance as well, leading to acute exudation of lymph
and small round cells into the peri-vascular and peri-cellular lymphatic spaces.
If these changes occur in the brain it is more than probable that they may also
take place in the spinal cord. Not a few of the subjective sensory changes,
pain, and feelings of weakness that accompany influenza and persist after the
fever has gone may be due to them."
I here is no doubt that very often influenza is diagnosed when it is nonexistent,
and that it is unfairly credited with illness which is not due to its
specific bacillus.
It is well known that in influenza there is a well marked derangement
of the digestive system, which at times is so great that the patients have no
appetite and feel an aclual disgust at even the idea of food, while they also
suffer from constipation, flatulence, and vomiting. These feelings are doubtless
due to the action of the bacillus, which Breccia only last year showed by
experiment had a marked inhibitory influence on the pepsin of man and other
animals.
The disease is very little fatal in young life, but from 35 years of age
onwards it demands a fairly heavy toll, as may be seen in the following
tabular statement:—
H 2