"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
Good living, careful personal hygiene, fresh air in abundance, avoidance
of over heated and poorly ventilated rooms, together with a general high
standard of living, are excellent in their way to prevent ordinary
disease; but in so far as they can prevent any one from being infected
by the Flu, the absolute protection is entirely lacking in them; none of
these very essential hygienic principles can produce IMMUNITY, which is
the SOLE protector from an attack, or more than one attack of Influenza,
and it is Nature’s standby, and by means of which it braces up the
system to convalescence and ultimate recovery.
Successful Vaccination against Small-pox will prevent or render mild an
attack of that disease, in 95% of those who have been vaccinated and
re-vaccinated. A baby in arms if successfully vaccinated is Immune and
protected; whereas an unvaccinated giant living in a balmy climate,
should he contract Small-pox, will probably be a candidate for a coffin
or the furnace of a Crematory.
A mild climate cannot alter nor render less harmful to the system of
man, the specific toxin or poison of Influenza once it is liberated into
his blood; nor the toxin of any other micro-organism of the infectious
type.
In the combat with disease, many of the advantages of our Hawaiian
climate are to a certain extent neutralised by a lack of stamina and
disease resistance (and also the neglecting to call in the services of a
physician at an early stage of the illness) of some of our inhabitants.
Any person who is affected with symptoms of disease, such as fever,
headache, nasal discharge, cough, sore and tickling throat, and
lassitude, during the prevalence of Flu, epidemic or sporadic, should
take to bed, and by so doing, it may mean and is in line with a quick
recovery, and a mild case of that disease: whereas fighting off the
disease and struggling to pursue one’s daily avocation may change a mild
type of illness to a very grave and hopeless one. In this respect
Influenza resembles Typhoid fever of the ambulatory type, the victim
does not realize how sick he is, but when the hour comes that exhausted
body and brain forces him to seek his bed, it is often too late, and
death or prolonged sickness awaits him. Frequently the athlete and the
physically strong, when stricken with Flu, refrain from early rest,
struggle against the inroads of the disease, exhaust their recuperative
powers, and when finally driven to bed, collapse and die: whereas a
weaker individual being speedily overcome, gives up and takes early to
bed and recovers.
The death rate amongst those who are attacked by the “Flu” varies in
each epidemic and pandemic; as a fair average, approximately most
recover, say 75%; incomplete recovery 15%; and in the late epidemic in
Honolulu, the winter of 1920, the death rate was 8% to 10%; in the U. S.
A. it was 4% to 6%; and in Europe 4½%.
INCUBATION.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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