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59
A "Provisional Memorandum upon Precautions advisable
at times when Epidemic Influenza threatens, or is prevalent,"
was also drawn up by me in January, 1892, and was issued by
the Board to local sanitary authorities.
The further study made by the Medical Department as to
the natural history of Influenza, and as to its clinical and
bacteriological characteristics, goes to show that it is a disease
against which it is most difficult to apply measures of prevention
with any substantial prospect of success.
Influenza is highly infective from person to person; its
infectious quality is often manifested before the disease is fully
recognised; its incubation period is one of the shortest of all
infectious diseases; it varies so much in intensity that many
cases are never diagnosed at all; one attack confers no marked
immunity against another; and the infection is largely eliminated
by means of the lungs, the sputa of the sick being invariably
charged, during the acute stage of the disease, with its pathognomonic
micro-organism. The disease calls primarily for
measures of isolation and of disinfection, but there are difficulties
in making any such measures universally applicable. Wherever
they can be carried out, the following precautions should,
however, be adopted:
1st. The sick should be separated from the healthy. This
is certainly important in the case of first attacks
in a locality or household.
2nd. The sputa of the sick should, especially in the acute
stage of the disease, be received into vessels containing
disinfectants. Infected articles and rooms
should be cleansed and disinfected.
3rd. When Influenza threatens, unnecessary assemblage
of persons should be avoided.