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81
1908
INFLUENZA.
Since 1890 influenza has been more or less present every year in this
country, and in Islington there has been a similar experience.
In going back to the records of the Borough, it is found that in the several
quinquennial periods since 1855 the deaths were respectively 18, 12, 10, 2, 2,
2, 40, 718, 42 and 271.
Thus we see that in earlier years the disease was very little known, and
indeed, to find a time when it was a scourge in England we must go back
to 1728 and 1803, during which periods it was severely epidemic.
Influenza has been defined as a specific fever, epidemic and often pandemic,
of sudden onset and short duration, attended with loss of appetite and very
great prostration, associated often with more or less severe catarrh, neuralgic
pains, or gastro-intestinal disturbance, and especially liable to be complicated
by severe respiratory affections to which the mortality of the disease is
chiefly due.
A short history of the disease has been given in a previous report and,
therefore, it is not necessary now to say anything further about it.
In Islington since 1898 there have been on an average 75 deaths per
annum, the maximum number being registered in 1900, when 149 deaths
occurred, while in the preceding year they numbered 126. In the past year
there were 81 deaths.