[748] The collective inquiry on the epidemics was made by the medical department of the Local Government Board, the result being given in two reports: Report on the Influenza Epidemic of 1889-90, Parl. Papers, 1891, and Further Report and Papers on Epidemic Influenza, 1889-92, Parl. Papers, Sept. 1893. By H. Franklin Parsons, M.D. Statistical tables comparing the epidemics in London with those in some other capitals were published by F. A. Dixey, M.D., Epidemic Influenza, Oxford, 1892.
[749] The notable difference between the type of this epidemic and that of the epidemics of 1833, 1837 and 1847, from which the conventional notion of “influenza cold” was derived, is perhaps the explanation of the following apt and erudite remark by Buchanan, on “influenza proper,” in his introduction to the first departmental report, 1891: “It would be no small gain to get more authentic methods of identifying influenza proper from among the various grippes, catarrhs, colds and the like—in man, horse, and other animals—that take to themselves the same popular title” (p. xi).
[750] The volume by Julius Althaus, M.D., Influenza: its Pathology, Complications and Sequelae, 2nd ed., Lond. 1892, includes a summary and bibliography of recent observations.
[751] Noah Webster, Brief History of Epidemick Diseases, I. 288; Warren, of Boston, to Lettsom, 30 May, 1790, Lettsom’s Memoirs, III. 238: “whether this [the second] is a variety of influenza, or a new disease with us, I am at a loss to determine.”
[752] In Twysden’s Decem Scriptores, col. 579.
[753] Boyle’s Works, 6 vols., London, 1772, V. 52.
[754] Seneca, Nat. Quaest. § 27, cited by Webster. After earthquakes, “subitae continuaeque mortes, et monstrosa genera morborum ut ex novis orta causis.” The passage cited from Baglivi (p. 530) looks like a repetition of this: “imo nova et inaudita morborum genera ... post terraemotus.”
[755] Cited by Horace E. Scudder, in Noah Webster. New York and London, 1881, p. 105.
[756] Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, 2 vols., Hartford, 1799.
[757] Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, II. 15.