"The Flu": a brief history of influenza in U.S. America, Europe, Hawaii — John Shaqi
"The Flu": a brief history of influenza in U.S. America, Europe, HawaiiMouritz, A. A. St. M. (Arthur Albert St. M.)
History
"The Flu": a brief history of influenza in U.S. America, Europe, Hawaii
Mouritz, A. A. St. M. (Arthur Albert St. M.)
Influenza
(a) It develops gradually and complicates the Bronchitis of Influenza.
(b) Its peculiar physical signs are: the respiratory murmur in the early
stages of the “Flu” is diminished, and later completely disappears; then
bronchial breathing begins without dullness or crepitant rales, like
true Pneumonia.
In Hawaii as elsewhere, the complicating Pneumonia seldom appears before
the second or third day; occasionally it comes to the fore after the
fifth or sixth; it is not always easy of detection in a mild case. In
our epidemic in Honolulu last winter, 1920, some of cases considered as
Pneumonia were in fact those of simple Pulmonary congestion and oedema,
attended with expectoration of frothy blood-tinged mucus, resembling the
swollen or drowned lung found in those who have been submerged and died
from drowning.
The true Influenza-Pneumonia sputum or spit is “greenish-yellow,” this
greenish color being due to the presence in the sputum of a green
pigment excreted by the diplo-coccus or double coccus, like a necklace
of beads, or sometimes resembling rounded small rods.
LEGACIES OF THE “FLU” TO MAN.
A tendency to T. B., softening of the heart muscle, nervous prostration,
insomnia, restlessness and inability for brain work, depression of
spirits and irritability of temper, neuralgias, middle ear disease, eye
troubles, vertigo or giddiness from the ear disease or eye or heart;
stomach disease after intestinal influenza, vomiting spells, etc., etc.,
emaciation, diarrhoea.
The open air life of the occupants of T. B. hospitals accounts for their
freedom from epidemic “Flu”; but they are not immune to every epidemic.
Residents of asylums, hospitals, and jails are not so fortunate, numbers
of the inmates being attacked; daily rations of quinine should be given.
IMMUNITY THE KING PROTECTOR.
Paradoxical as the statement may appear, the mild and balmy climate of
the Hawaiian Islands, or any other place, neither protects nor prevents
any person from being attacked by the Influenza.
A mild climate is not a factor of prevention against any infectious or
contagious disease: the dominant agent and king of protectors is an
IMMUNITY inherited or acquired.
Climate cannot alter, change or prevent any person from being infected
with Small-pox, Plague, Cholera, Scarlet Fever, Typhus or Influenza.
In the presence of King “Flu” all men are not equal, those who have had
several attacks of the disease in former years, or have recently had it,
are fairly Immune, not absolutely so; but others who have not recently
had Flu are liable to become infected with it, and may be stricken at
any time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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