THE WEATHER, INFLUENZA, AND DISEASE. 595 



being drier, is more able to carry suspended particles with it. Temperature has nothing 

 to do with the problem, except in so far as the different types of weather may modify it. 

 If reference be made to the " Annals of Influenza " we find that the epidemic of 

 1510 was preceded by a period of moisture, and followed by remarkable storms ; the fact 

 that nothing is recorded of the weather during the attack may indicate that it was dry 

 and uneventful. The epidemic of 1580 was preceded by weather "of a moist, rainy, 

 southerly constitution," and commenced in October, after the setting in of a cold dry 

 wind. In 1758, in September, an outbreak occurred during easterly winds. The spring 

 epidemic of 1782, probably the most widely spread of any, occurred in weather which 

 was " cold, gloomy, humid, with occasional dry fogs." In the other epidemics the 

 meteorological records are confused, and the weather generally reported as being variable. 

 In Creighton's History of Epidemics of Britain, vol. 2, it is stated that the epidemic 

 of influenza which occurred in the spring of 1658 was attended by a north wind. It 

 again broke out in 1659, the following note being taken from Willis : — " having had no 

 warm weather before, but a rainy and black week, the sun not appearing for five or six 

 days together, just before the holiday (Easter), when on a sudden that warm weather 

 breaking forth," the outbreak occurred. All these records point to the occurrence of 

 similar phenomena to those noted during the majority of the epidemics of the last 

 six years. I do not mean to assert that such meteorological conditions are by any 

 means indispensable to the spread of influenza in epidemic form, but that they afford 

 favourable facilities for it. 



Influenza and the Admissions of the Different Classes of Disease. 



In working out the effect of the different epidemics on disease, as represented by 

 the admissions into the Medical Wards, I took, in the first place, the admissions for 

 the weeks during which Influenza was prevalent; and secondly, for a period of 16 

 weeks, commencing one month after the close of each attack. The interval of a month 

 was necessary to obviate the inclusion of any late cases of Influenza. A period of 

 12 weeks could only be taken after the epidemic of 1891, owing to the short 

 time which elapsed before the epidemic of 1891-92 set in. The total admissions for 

 these periods were first noted, and then the numbers of cases of different disorders. In 

 the table (Table VII.) following, the figures so obtained have been arranged in columns. 

 The first column contains the total numbers admitted during the periods under con- 

 sideration. The second column represents the weekly average during the same periods, 

 contrasted in the third column with the mean weekly averages for the year in which 

 the epidemic took place. The last two columns show the percentage of the admissions 

 of different classes of disease to the total numbers during the epidemic weeks, con- 

 trasted with the normal percentage of the year. At the head of these last two 

 columns the relative percentages between the total admissions of the year, repre- 

 sented as 100, and the total admissions during the periods under review, are given. 



VOL. XXXVIII. PART III. (NO. 16). 4 N 



