According to Waldschmidt, during the epidemic of 1712, in Kiel, ten or more persons were frequently taken ill in one house. In 1732, Huxam tells us that, “not a house was free from it, the beggar’s hut and the nobleman’s palace were alike subject to its attack, scarce a person escaping either in town or country, old and young, strong and infirm, shared the same fate.” Metzger says that the influenza was so universal in March, 1782, that in very many houses all of the inmates were attacked. On the other hand, Mertens did not believe the influenza a contagion during the same epidemic for the reason that according to his observations now only one, and again all, of the members of a family, were stricken. In 1833, in Königsberg, according to Hufeland, parents, children, and servants were frequently smitten with the disease at the same time, so that strange help had to be obtained for the family. Parkes taught that, “Persons in overcrowded habitations have, particularly in some epidemics, especially suffered, and several instances are on record of a large school or a barrack for soldiers being first attacked, and of the disease prevailing there for some days before it began to prevail in the town around. Sometimes, on the other hand, schools and prisons have escaped. A low, damp, ill-ventilated and unhealthy situation appears to predispose to it, and in some instances, in hospital patients, it has assumed a malignant character. In other cases again, hospital patients have escaped; for example, the old people in the Salpêtrière in 1837, when the younger attendants were attacked.”