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88
1906]
INFLUENZA.
This disease was more than usually prevalent, and caused 67 deaths, as
compared with 54 in 1905, 48 in 1904, and 40 in 1903, and with a corrected
average during the ten years 1896-1905 of 70. Although the 13 deaths
in the first quarter of the year were 25 below the average, yet in the
second quarter the 21 deaths were 9 above it. In the third quarter the
deaths numbered 7, or 3 above the average, while in the fourth they
increased to 26, or 10 above the average, the total number for the year being
3 below it.
Influenza has now been more or less endemic in Islington since 1890,
when it caused 38 deaths, which ro?e in the following year to 184, and was
followed in the succeeding years by 18 r, 123, 51 and 179, and thence onwardb
by the deaths which are given in Table LVII.
Prior to 1890 and as far back as 1856, the disease was hardly known here,
for a careful search of the returns has shown that between 1856-60 only 18
deaths were registered ; between 1861-5,12; between 1866-70,10; between 187175,
2; between 1876-80, 2; between 1881-5, 2; between 1886-90,40, of which 38
were registered in 1890. Between 1891 and 1895, however, the number increased
to 718, which were followed in the next five years, 1896-00, by 410 deaths,
and then by 271 in the five years 1901-5. When the disease made its appearance
in epidemic form in the United Kingdom in 1890 it was known as Russian
Influenza and as La Grippe, and it was generally thought that after a short
time it would disappear altogether. It is doubtful if the disease which we
know as Influenza is the same as that registered prior to the great pandemic
of 1899-90, but rather one of a catarrhal description, usually spoken of as an
" influenza cold," which was unaccompanied by those severe neurotic, cardiac,
and gastric symptoms which render it so fatal, particularly to the weak
and the old.
Epidemics of the disease in its present form have, however, occurred
before in this country, and their history is fairly well known. Indeed, a
malady, whose symptoms may be said to have been identical with what was
known later on as Influenza, was described in the fourteenth century in
Ireland. It was epidemic in Europe in the early part of the sixteenth century,
and since then in various countries. It has been with us all too long now and
its disappearance would be gladly welcomed, the more so that it does not
appear amenable to sanitary control, nor do overcrowding, bad ventilation, or