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Influenza is flighty infective from person to person: its infectious quality is
often manifested before the disease is fully recognised; its incubation period
is ope 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 patho gnomonic micro-organism. The disease
calls primarily for measures of isolation and of disinfection ; but there arc
difficulties in making any such measures universally applicable. Wherever
they can be carried out, the following precautions should, however, be
adopted :—
1.—The sick should be separated from the healthy. This is specially
important in the case of first attacks in a locality or a household.
2.—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.
3.—When Influenza threatens, unnecessary assemblage of persons
should be avoided.
4.—Buildings and rooms, in which many people necessarily congregate,
should be efficiently aerated and cleansed during the intervals
of occupation.
It should be borne in mind that the liability to contract Influenza, and also
the danger of the attack, if contracted, are increased by depressing conditions,
such as exposure to cold and to fatigue, whether mental or physical. Attention
should hence be paid at epidemic periods to all measures tending to tho
maintenance of health : such as tho use of clothing of suitable warmth, and a
sufficiency of wholesome food.
Persons who ore attacked by Influenza should at once seek rest, warmth,
and medical treatmeut, and they should bear in mind that the risk of relapse,
with dangerous complications, constitutes a chief danger of the disease.
During the year 1710 rooms were fumigated, stripped, and cleansed ; 30,505
articles were steamed in the Chamber, and 1796 articles were destroyed bv
fire in the destructor furnace.
R. Thorne Thorne.
Local Government Board,
Medical Department,
March 6th, 1895.
DISINFECTION.
Details of Disinfection.
Number of rooms fumigated 1710
Number of notices served to strip and cleanse 1644