tHE INFLUENZA IN HOUSES. 137 
was loss of appetite and cold ears. Few of those attacked 
recovered.” 
In 1688 influenza was epidemic over the whole of Europe, 
spreading from east to west. Short and Ratty assure us 
that in the British Isles it was preceded by a nasal catarrh, 
from which horses universally suffered. In 1693 Europe 
had another visitation, almost identical in every particular 
with that just named. In 1699 America suffered in common 
with Europe, the horses proving the first victims on both 
continents. Again, in 1732, it prevailed on both hemi¬ 
spheres, attacking, indiscriminately, horses and men. Gibson 
has left a very full description of the equine disorder. In 
1767 it once more prevailed on both sides of the Atlantic. 
Forster and Mumsen for Europe, and Webster and Ulloa 
for America, record the implication of horses and dogs. In 
1776, almost exactly a century ago, after a very severe 
winter and warm summer, with an earthquake in Wales, 
influenza spread over Europe, attacking horses and dogs 
first and human beings later. Poultry died in great numbers 
of an epizootic, with defluxions from the eyes. The simi¬ 
larity of the climatic conditions preceding that outbreak and 
the present one is not a little remarkable. We have passed 
through a winter of intense severity and a summer of un¬ 
usual heat: earthquakes have occurred on the continent, 
and, to make the analogy more complete, it would seem that 
our poultry-yards are now to be decimated. But similar 
conditions have often failed to produce the same results, 
and, in the present state of our knowledge, we can only look 
on the coincidence as accidental. 
Causes .—That unwholesome states of the atmosphere con¬ 
tribute to spread the affection, and to increase its severity, 
there can be no doubt. The milder outbreaks will some¬ 
times confine themselves to stables which are unduly exposed 
to prevailing cold winds, or to such as are damp, filthy, 
undrained, and unventilated. Pearson, Parkes, Baker, and 
Gray, have observed that influenza in man is often similarly 
localised, or made to take on a malignant form under un¬ 
wholesome conditions of life, and their conclusions are 
further substantiated by the reports of the English Registrar- 
General. But this is nothing more than is seen in other 
epizootic or zymotic diseases. Unhealthy conditions, and, 
above all, impure air, lead to undue waste of the component 
structures of the bodv, and hinder the elimination of the 
waste, or used-up materials from the blood, so that that 
liquid becomes very impure, and especially adapted to the 
reception and growth of morbid poisons. Such conditions 
