NAMES FOR INFLUENZA.
| Italian | Catarro Russo, and Influente. |
| Portuguese | Cattarrho Epidemico. |
| Spanish | Catarro Epidemico. |
| German | Blitzkatarrh = Lightning-catarrh. |
| German | Influenz. |
CHAPTER III.
INFLUENZA IN HAWAII.
Previous to the year 1889 Hawaii had been tolerably free from the “Flu.” Such cases which had appeared in former years were of a mild character, as were also those which prevailed during the 1889–90 epidemic. Epidemic Catarrh has been known in the Hawaiian Islands for many years. The Annals of the early Missionary Fathers mention it.
Dr. Alonzo Chapin, an early Missionary physician, refers to it; on page 39 of the Author’s “Monograph on Leprosy,” is the following quotation taken from the Doctor’s writings in the years 1836–37: (in Hawaii) “Diseases occur epidemically, as was the case with Catarrh, repeatedly.”
This epidemic catarrh was probably Influenza in a mild form; or it may have been the epidemic catarrh of the kind known to the physicians of today, as that caused by the Micro-coccus Catarrhalis, a globular or spheroid shaped micro-organism.
South Wind Catarrh: In Hawaii during the season when the South wind prevails, from November to March, epidemic and infectious colds are very common. They are attended with disagreeable frontal headache, nasal discharge, sore throat, fever, aching limbs and body; these are cases of mild “Flu.” Elderly people, middle aged and old foreign residents, and our Aboriginal population are those mostly affected.
Hawaii today, due to great increase of travel, greater speed of ocean steamers, and its cosmopolitan population, is probably infected, like all other ports of the U. S. A., with several different species or strains of the Influenza Bacillus, and also those of the Micro-coccus Catarrhalis.