Week ending Fevers All causes
January16 69 531
23 83 783
30 243 1588
February 6 170 1166
13 110 628
20 66 591

1737

Week ending Fevers All causes
August30 117 611
September 6 161 720
13 201 837
20 229 861
27 167 770
October4 143 687
11 114 551

In Dublin the worst week’s mortality in 1737, in the month of October, was 144, whereas in the influenza of 1733 the highest weekly bill had been only 98[628]. Hardly any particulars of the influenza of 1737 remain, although it appears to have been widely diffused, being recorded for Barbados and New England. The only source of English information is Huxham of Plymouth, who mentions some symptoms which should serve to characterize this outbreak, namely: violent swelling of the face, the parotids and maxillary glands, followed by an immense discharge of an exceedingly acrid pituita from the mouth and nose; toothache and, in some, hemicrania; “in multitudes,” wandering rheumatic pains; in others violent sciatics; in some griping of the bowels. Huxham makes one interesting statement: “This catarrhal fever has prevailed more or less for several winters past;” or, in other words, the interval between the severe influenza of 1733 and the milder influenza of 1737 was not altogether clear of the disease. He adds that it put on various forms, according to the different constitutions of those it attacked.

The Influenza of 1743.

Six years after, in 1743, came another influenza, which presents some interesting points. A writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine for May, 1743, says that the epidemic began in September last in Saxony, that it progressed to Milan, Genoa, and Venice, and to Florence and Rome, where it was called the Influenza; in February last (1743) no fewer than 80,000 were sick of it [? in Rome] and 500 buried in one day. At Messina it was suspected to be the forerunner of a plague—which did, indeed, ensue. It is now (May) in Spain, depopulating whole villages. The outbreak in Italy is authenticated by many notices collected by Corradi, Brescia having had the epidemic in October, 1742, Milan and Venice in November, Bologna in December, Rome, Pisa, Leghorn, Florence and Genoa in January, 1743, Naples and the Sicilian towns in February. The English troops, in cantonments near Brussels, were little touched by it when it reached that capital about the end of February, but, strangely enough, “many who in the preceding autumn had been seized with intermittents then relapsed[629].”

In London the epidemic appears to have begun in the end of March, and had trebled the deaths in the week ending 12th April; by the beginning of May it was practically over.

London Weekly Mortalities.

1743

Week
ending		 Fevers All causes
March 29 94 579
April5 189 1013
12 300 1448
19 223 1026
26 115 629
May3 82 537