In 1580 a great epidemic of influenza spread from the south-east toward the north-west over Asia, Africa, and Europe. From Constantinople and Venice it overran Hungary and Germany, and reached the farthest regions of Norway, Sweden, and Russia. It spread into England, and has been described by Dr. Short. In Italy it prevailed during August and September, in England from the middle of August to the end of September, and in Spain during the whole summer. In most places its duration was about six weeks. As a rule, the termination was favorable, although the disease ran a somewhat protracted course. In the account of Dr. Short it is stated that "few died except those that were let blood of or had unsound viscera." In some places, on the contrary, the course of the disease was very severe. In Rome two thousand died of it, according to the author just cited, but Zuelzer informs us that the victims of this epidemic in the Eternal City were not less than nine thousand, and adds that Madrid must have been almost depopulated by it. This high mortality has been attributed to the bloodletting practised in the treatment of the disease. The symptoms were similar to those of the previous epidemics, with a greater shortness of breath, which continued in many cases for some time after the disappearance of the catarrhal trouble. There was great sweating at the end of the attack. The plague, measles, and small-pox prevailed also, and with considerable violence, during the year 1580.
Influenza, unfelt for several years, reappeared in Germany in 1591; an epidemic extending from Holland through France and into Italy occurred in 1593. In 1610 catarrh is said to have prevailed throughout Europe. In 1626-27 epidemic catarrhal fever made its appearance in Italy and France; in 1642-43 in Holland; in 1647 in Spain and in the colonies of the Western World; and again, in 1655 in North America. According to Webster,7 this epidemic of 1647 was the first catarrh mentioned in American annals.
7 Noah Webster, A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases, London, 1800.
In 1658 and 1675 it again visited Austria, Germany, England, etc. The first of these two epidemics is described by Willis,8 and the second by Sydenham,9 as they occurred in England, and the accounts are to be found in the Annals of Influenza. It is about this period that the disease began to be known as influenza, and it is not without interest to observe that the influence of the stars suggested itself, in connection with its sudden appearance and wide prevalence, to the minds of the physicians of this date. Willis writes that "about the end of April (1658), suddenly a distemper arose, as if sent by some blast of the stars, which laid hold on very many together; that in some towns in the space of a week above a thousand people fell sick together."
8 Dr. Willis, The Description of a Catarrhal Fever Epidemical in the Middle of the Spring in the Year 1658: Practice of Physick, 1684.
9 The Epidemic Coughs of the Year 1675, with the Pleurisy and Peripneumony that supervened: from the Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.
Epidemics are recorded as having occurred in Great Britain and Europe in 1688, 1693, and in 1709. The disease raged in 1712 widely over Europe from Denmark to Italy.
In 1729-30 a widespread epidemic swept over Europe. In five months it extended over Russia, Poland, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. In Vienna sixty thousand persons fell ill of it. In the autumn it spread to England, and reached France and Switzerland; from there it extended to Italy, and by February it had reached Rome and Naples. Spain did not escape its ravages, and it is said to have found its way to Mexico. The symptoms did not differ in any important respect from those already described as characterizing previous epidemics. Pains in the limbs and fever marked the onset of the attack; catarrh, oppression, hoarseness, cough followed. In some cases delirium, drowsiness, and faintings occurred. A petechial eruption was observed, in some instances, between the fourth and seventh days. This renders it probable that typhus or cerebro-spinal fever prevailed at the same time. Turbid urine, copious sweats, bilious stools, and nose-bleeding were often noted. In Switzerland only children and old persons died. The disease was not very fatal.
Two years later (1732-33) an epidemic, starting from Saxony and Poland, overran Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, and invaded Great Britain in the month of December. Toward the end of January it spread in a south-easterly direction to France, Italy, Spain, and westward to North America, thence southward to the islands of the West Indies, and on to South America. The course of the disease in this epidemic was favorable. The attack terminated in from three to fourteen days, with sweating, bleeding from the nose, or an abundant discharge from the nasal passages. The aged and those suffering from chronic pulmonary diseases mostly perished. In Scotland three forms of the affection were described—namely, the cephalic, the thoracic, and the abdominal. The epidemic slowly spread over Eastern Europe and in a south-easterly direction, and may be said to have lasted till 1737.
Concerning this epidemic John Huxham of Plymouth wrote as follows:10 "About this time a disease invaded these parts which was the most completely epidemic of any I remember to have met with; not a house was free from it; the beggar's hut and the nobleman's palace were alike subject to its attacks, scarce a person escaping either in town or country; old and young, strong and infirm, shared the same fate." The malady had raged in Cornwall and the western parts of Devonshire from the beginning of February; it reached Plymouth on the 10th, which was on a Saturday, and that day numbers were suddenly seized. The next day multitudes were taken ill, and by the 18th or 20th of March scarcely any one had escaped it. "The disorder began at first with a slight shivering; this was presently followed by a transient erratic heat and headache and a violent and troublesome sneezing; then the back and lungs were seized with flying pains, which sometimes attacked the heart likewise, and though they did not long remain there, yet were very troublesome, being greatly irritated by the violent cough which accompanied the disorder, in the fits of which a great quantity of a thin, sharp mucus was thrown out from the nose and mouth. These complaints were like those arising from what is called catching cold, but presently a slight fever came on, which afterward grew more violent; the pulse was now very quick, but not in the least hard and tense like that in a pleurisy; nor was the urine remarkably red, but very thick, and inclining to a whitish color; the tongue, instead of being dry, was thickly covered with a whitish mucus or slime; there was an universal complaint of want of rest and a great giddiness. Several likewise were seized with a most racking pain in the head, often accompanied by a slight delirium. Many were troubled with a tinnitus aurium, or singing in the ears; and numbers suffered from violent earaches or pains in the meatus auditorius, which in some turned to an abscess. Exulcerations and swellings of the fauces were likwise very common. The sick were in general very much given to sweat, which, when it broke out of its own accord, was very plentiful and continued without striking in again, and did often in the space of two or three days wholly carry off the fever. You have here a description of this epidemic disease such as it prevailed hereabouts, attacking every one more or less; but still, considering the great multitude that were seized by it, it was fatal to but few, and that chiefly infants and consumptive old people. It generally went off about the fourth day, leaving behind a troublesome cough, which was very often of long duration, and such a dejection of strength as one would hardly have suspected from the shortness of the time.