INFECTIOUS DISEASES AND MICROBES, ETC. 197 



deaths might have been expected, whereas the actual 

 deaths were only 511. In other words, 3011 lives 

 of mothers were saved as the result of new and 

 purely scientific methods of treatment. 1 



INFLUENZA. 



This is a very different disease from the catarrhal 

 affections known by the same name. It is really 

 an acute specific disease running a definite course 

 like scarlatina or measles ; but very little is known 

 of the cause or nature of this ubiquitous disease 

 which has attacked humanity in its own violent 

 fashion at short intervals from probably the earliest 

 ages. The history of the recorded epidemics of La 

 Grippe is marvellously complete for centuries. 

 Every country and every climate in the world is 

 subject to it, yet it appears to find a permanent 

 home nowhere as a constant or endemic resident, 

 but to disappear from the face of the earth for a 

 series of years. It is, however, probable that the 

 microbe of this disease has some undiscovered 

 endemic source. 



The symptoms of epidemic influenza follow pre- 

 cisely the type of the other infective fevers, and 

 preserve a remarkable uniformity and individuality 

 in successive epidemics. Sir Morell Mackenzie' 2 

 believes that the disease is due to ' a specific poison 

 of some kind which gains access to the body, and, 



1 For further information on the subject of puerperal fever 

 see Flessinger's paper in Gaz. Med. de Paris, 1889, p. 313 ; and 

 Widal's Etude sur V Infection Puerperale (1889). 



2 Fortnightly Review, June 1891. 



