At first people had laughed at the "new disease," but the laughter was shortlived--like great numbers of those whom the epidemic attacked. Harley Street described it professionally as a recrudescence of _plica polonica_; and just as at an earlier period people had contracted influenza into "the flue," they now went about asking each other how about the "plic." It was a malady which at one time had prevailed extensively in Poland, and but little doubt could be felt that it had now been introduced into England by the Polish Jews, whose alien colony in Whitechapel and other parts of the East End had attained enormous proportions. The peculiar feature of the plic. was that it attacked the hair of the head, matting it together and twisting it in hard knots, to touch which caused the most exquisite pain; this symptom was often accompanied with manifestations of acute nervous disorder. The patient speedily became feverish, and in most instances showed signs of derangement in the functions of the brain. As the malady developed sleep was banished, or, when obtained, would be disturbed by dreadful dreams. Profound depression weighed upon the spirits, and the bare sight of food and drink excited strong repulsion. Gouty pains in arms and legs caused acute agony to some of the sufferers, and in many cases there were fits of giddiness and an affection of the optic nerve that produced temporary blindness. The disease more often than not proved fatal. Physicians were at a loss for radical cures, and a course of thermal baths was found to be the most efficacious palliative that the faculty could recommend. Under the advice of Harley Street, great numbers of patients, in the early stages of the disease, flocked to Bath for the water-cure. Not since the days of the Georges had the famous city of the west harboured so many afflicted visitors. Every hotel was crowded from basement to attic. The lodging-house keepers exacted monstrous prices for the most indifferent accommodation. Local doctors drove a roaring trade, and every other woman in the street seemed to wear the familiar garb of the hospital nurse. Among the distinguished persons who had been advised to have recourse to the healing properties of the famous baths was the foremost man, officially speaking, in the country. Nicholas Jardine was declared to be suffering from a severe attack of the prevailing epidemic, and the papers announced that the President would at the earliest possible moment leave London for Bath.