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As was also the case during 1918, the sexes appear to have
suffered equally, taking into consideration the estimated male and
female populations (128,357 and 153,965 respectively), whilst the
disease was widespread throughout the Borough generally, the
Inner, more crowded, districts, and the outer, less crowded, districts,
suffering equally, whether Registration Sub-Districts or Wards,
with the Borough as a whole, viz. : a corrected influenza deathrate
of 1.1 per 1,000 of the population.
Finally, as was also the case during 1918, the disease during
1919 appeared in three forms: (a) Nervous, (b) Catarrhal (bronchitis
and pheumonia) and (c) gastric—the catarrhal form being the
commonest; and second attacks of the disease were rare. The
Pfeiffer bacillus, the pneumococcus Friedlanderi and a streptococcus
were isolated upon some of the patients, as was also the case last
year. 169 cases of influenzal pneumonia were notified during 1919,
this form of the disease being made compulsorily notifiable as from
January 1st, 1919. The most fatal type of the disease was the
pneumonic (a catarrhal type). The disease appeared to spread from
person to person and to be at its height of virulence from the point
of view of infection to others during the first 36 or 48 hours from its
onset, several cases occurring in one house at one and the same time.
The Public Health (Influenza) Regulations, 1918, and the
Public Health (Influenza) Regulations (No. 2), 1918, which came
into force on November 25th, 1918, were rescinded by the Order of
the Local Government Board on May 6th, 1919. The usual precautionary
measures were taken.
The Influenza epidemic lasted for 12 months from the commencement
of the third quarter of 1918 to the end of the second
quarter of 1919, a total of 1,070 corrected deaths (registered),
thereby shewing the serious ravages that an epidemic may cause in a
district at any time. The disease was, undoubtedly, introduced
from abroad and was pandemic over the World.