We have the testimony of Robert Whytt, for 1758, and that of Razoux and Saillant and Ehrman for 1762, as to the low mortality of the epidemic for those years.
According to Heberden the same was true for 1775, while Webster tells us for 1780 that the disease was not dangerous but its effects were seen the following year in the increased number of cases of phthisis.
Finkler remarks concerning the epidemic of 1802, “The mortality in this epidemic was small, only the abuse of venesection brought many to the grave. Thus, so many farmers are said to have died in Russia from it that venesection was forbidden by an imperial ukase. Jonas says that many patients were bled either on the advice of a simple village barber or by their own wish, and most of them died. In Prussia also bleeding was declared detrimental by the Government.”
He continues regarding 1836–37, that, “In London there died, during the week ending January 24, 1837, a total of 871 persons, and among these deaths there were 295 from disease of the respiratory organs; during the week ending January 31st, out of a total of 860 deaths there were 309 from diseases of the respiratory organs.”
Watson, in describing the epidemic of 1847, discusses the mortality:
“The absolute mortality has been enormous; yet the relative mortality has been small. You will hear people comparing the ravages of the influenza with those of the cholera, and inferring that the latter is the less dangerous complaint of the two; but this is plainly a great misapprehension. Less dangerous to the community at large (in this country at least) it certainly has been; but infinitely more dangerous to the individuals attacked by it. More persons have died of the influenza in the present year than died of the cholera when it raged in 1832; but then a vastly greater number have been affected with the one disease than with the other. I suppose that nearly one-half of those who were seized with the cholera perished; while but a very small fraction, indeed, not more probably than two per cent. of those who suffered influenza have sunk under it.”
Leichtenstern remarks on the very low mortality of 1889–90. In Munich 0.6 per cent. died; in Rostock 0.8 per cent.; in Leipzig 0.5 per cent.; in fifteen Swiss cities 0.1 per cent.; in Karlsruhe 0.075 per cent.; in Mecklenburg-Schwerin 1.2 per cent. This does not, however, include the numerous deaths from complications, as from pneumonia, and does not express the true mortality.
Newsholme gives the following table for mortality from influenza, bronchitis and pneumonia, in England and Wales during the epidemic years and the years immediately preceding them. The figures express annual death rate per million of population. The highest rate was reached in 1891. The table does not include deaths registered as from other diseases, but due directly or indirectly to influenza. Respiratory diseases in general show a greatly increased death rate in years in which influenza is epidemic. Such is also true to some extent with diseases of the nervous and the circulatory systems.
| Death rate per million of population from | Non-epidemic years. | Epidemic years. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1887 | 1888 | 1889 | 1890 | 1891 | 1892 | |
| Influenza | 3 | 3 | 2 | 157 | 574 | 533 |
| Bronchitis | 2,117 | 2,041 | 1,957 | 2,333 | 2,593 | 2,266 |
| Pneumonia | 1,113 | 1,093 | 1,022 | 1,404 | 1,471 | 1,250 |
In a report by the United States Public Health Service early in 1919 the death rates from all causes in twelve large cities of this country were compared for 1889–90 and for 1918–19. It was found that while considerable irregularity in the curves was evident, the curves of the two epidemics manifested on the whole quite a striking similarity for the same cities considered individually and for the group as a whole. The death rate rose to a much higher point during the autumn wave of the 1918 epidemic than in the epidemic of 1889–90 in nine out of the twelve cities. During both epidemics the rate was relatively low in St. Louis, Milwaukee and Minneapolis. The mortality in all of these cities was 26.7 in 1889, as against 35.2 for 1918. In the peak week the rate rose to 55.6 in 1918 as against 35.4 in 1889.