264 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



XoVEMliliK, 



1905. 



InflvienzsL arvd the 

 Weather. 



IJy Arthur H. Bell. 



Scapegoats are always in fashion, for ;it all times 

 people have shown a strong tendency to put the blame 

 for the ills to which humanity is heir on something or 

 somebody. The bills of mortality, for instance, as 

 soon as ever winter comes grow enormously long, and 

 in looking round for an explanation of this unusual 

 increase it seems the most natural thing in the world 

 to set down the ills of the community to the account of 

 the weather. Influenza, especially, is thus ascribed 

 to the vagaries and pranks of the British climate, but 

 an examination of the facts gives but little support 

 to this popular belief, and it may, indeed, be shown 

 that the scapegoat on this occasion is burdened with 

 misdeeds from which it should properly be free. 



The particular variety of the British climate summed 

 up under the heading liast Wind has, for example, 

 more particularly been objurgated and anathematised 

 as a breeder of the influenza; but since meteorologists 

 have been studying the anatomy and character, so to 

 speak, of this much maligned wind they have come to 

 the conclusion that the advantages derived by its bene- 

 ficent action on the land are to be counted as a set-off 

 against its undoubted untoward effects on man and 

 beast. The East Wind, among other good deeds, ex- 

 tracts all the moisture from those land surfaces over 

 which it blotvs, and so breaks up the soil and puts it in 

 better condition for the sowing of seed, and in this 

 way large tracks of country are, from an agricultural 

 point of view, improved and brought into good condi- 

 tion. This wind it is that breaks up the soil and 

 pulverises it, this beneficent action being recognized 

 by the old proverb that says, " .\ peck of March is 

 worth a King's ransom." 



In passing it may be said that the liast Wind, which, 

 like the Gulf Stream, may almost I^e called a national 

 institution, is, however, mainly to blame for chapped 

 hands and reddened and roughened cheeks so much in 

 evidence when this wind is streaming through the air. 

 That it has the.se effects on the human cuticle is due 

 to the fact of its being a dry wind. All the moisture, 

 indeed, is taken from it as it journeys across the frozen 

 plains €>f .Northern Europe, so that notwithstanding 

 its sub.scquent journey across the North Sea it is still 

 very dry by the time it reaches the British Isles. As a 

 result it sucks up water wherever it is to be found, 

 and, as already mentioned, it is from the land that it 

 takes much of the moisture wherewith it quenches the 

 thirst induced by its long journey. But like so many 

 other surfaces the skin of human beings is constantly 

 giving off moisture, and as the thirsty wind comes 

 along it promptly avails itself of these stores wherever 

 it finds a hand or a cheek exposed to it. 



Moreover, it is well known that according as there 

 is little or much vapour in the air, so is the passage 



through the atmosphere of the heat from the sun 

 assisted or retarded. Bearing this elementary fact in 

 mind it will be understood that since the air is very dry 

 when the East Wind is blowing, the sun's rays readily 

 pass through the air, and hence arises the redness im- 

 parted to hands and faces on cold and frosty morn- 

 ings. Those who have been on the snow on the top of 

 high mounlains will readily call to mind the way in 

 which their skin was reddened by the sunshine as it 

 came uninterruptedly through the cold air. The whole 

 of the blame, therefore, fo.- red noses, chiibl.'iins, and 

 chapped hands is not rightly to be given to the East 

 Wind, for the sun also bears much of the responsibility. 

 But the influenza in the popular mind is so intimately 

 associated with chappt'd hands that it seems a ready 

 way out of the dilliculty to say that the East Wind is 

 to blame for both. This aspersion on its character 

 has, however, never been proved, and until a stronger 

 case is made out the East Wind ought not to be used 

 as a scapegoat. 



.As a matter of fact, climatic conditions appear to 

 have only a secondary effect upon visitations of the 

 influenza epidemic. It seems, indeed, to visit the 

 regions round the Poles as impartially as it does those 

 at the Equator, and the Hottentot and the Esquimaux 

 mav, as it were, be said to sneeze in unison. Sunshine 

 would seem to have as little to do with its comings and 

 goings as does the dampness or dryness of the air. 

 The records from the rain-gauge and the hygrometer 

 have, from this point of view, been compared with the 

 statistics of the influenza scourge, and when this is 

 done no agreement is found between them. Meteoro- 

 logists, moreover, now know that different types of 

 weather are associated with two forms of distribution 

 of atmospheric pressure, one of these forms being called 

 cyclonic and the other anticyclonic. With the cyclones 

 the winds are circling strongly upwards and the 

 weather is stormy, rainy, and altogether unpleasant. 

 In the anticyclones, on the other hand, the winds are 

 circling downwards from the empyrean, and they bring 

 halcyon days and bright, exhilarating, cheerful 

 weather. 



Now there was once a theory which informed a 

 suffering humanity that their sneezes and wheezes were 

 due to the fact that the influenza germs were generated 

 bv hundreds of dead Chinamen drowned in one of those 

 disastrous Hoods which so frequently occur when the 

 mighty rivers in the celestial empire overflow their 

 banks. The meteorological data, however, proved 

 very conclusively that the wind over these areas blows 

 very regularly in quite the contrary direction necessary 

 to carry the influenza germs to Europe; and those who 

 wished to throw blame on the wind and the weather 

 had accordingly to cast around for another theory. 



The new statement of the case asserted that the 

 influenza was provoked by the dust thrown out by 

 volcanoes, and in one particular year it was confidently 

 ascribed to the tremendcjus volcanic eruption which 

 occurred at Krakatoa in the Straits of Sunda. During 

 this memorable leaping forth (jf the subterranean fires 

 the quantity of dust thrown into the air was un- 

 doubtedly very great. Moreover, all those beautiful 

 sunsets, afler-glows, lunar and solar corona;, and 

 haloes seen in abundani-e at this period were allowably 

 to be attributed to this great cataclysm, and since, more- 

 oxer, influenza was very prevalent just at that time, 

 nothing was easier than to assign its presence to this 

 volcanic outburst in .South-East Asia. At this time 

 also, as shown by the meteorologica] charts, anti- 

 <:yclonic conditir>ns prevailed over the British Islands, 



