INFLUENZA.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16430, 25 January 1919, Page 10

INFLUENZA.

OUTBREAK IN MELBOURNE. MANY FRESH CASES. (By Gable.—Pres« Association.— Copyright.) MELBOURNE, .January 24. Fourteen fresli cases of influenza have been admitted to hospital. The disease is obtaining greater virulence with each fresh infection. The Director of Quarantine states there is not sufficient evidence that the outbreak is Spanish influenza to justify declaring the State an infected area. SPANISH OR LOCAL? (Received January 24th, 10.15 p.m.) MELBOURNE, January 24. At the conference of Commonwealth and State Ministers, Mr Watt said that so far as the information went, the outbreak seemed epidemic, but not "the" epidemic. The chairman of the Board of Health states that the tests are incomplete, but there is reason to hope it is a virulent form of local influenza, not caused by tho foreign germ,. OFFICIAL OPINION. (Received January 24th, 11.50 p.m.) MELBOURNE, January 34. The authorities are taking all the necessary precautions. Influenza inocculation depots have been established. Several fresli cases occurred today, and there are. now 59 in hospital'. It is officially thought that the disease is a local type, but with increasing epidemic properties. Later. One hundred influenza cases are now under treatment. MEDICAL PATROLS ON BORDER. (Received January 24th, 10.15 p.m.) SYDNEY, January 24. While awaiting Federal action regarding the influenza outbreak in Victoria, the New South Wales . Government has taken the precautionary step of placing medical patrols on the bolder station at Albury. The Minister of Health sums up the position thus:.."There, is.no doubt that people in Victoria are dying, of a deadly disease. I: don't .care .whether it is Spanish influenza or not. So long a 6 it - kills .people we must j take the utmost precautions.",' . In view of this, Mr Holman,- has asked the Federal authorities; to enforce tlie agreement between the Commonwealth States and declare Victoria an infected State. . • * ORIGIN OF THE DISEASE, INTRODUCTION TO EUROPE. In . the latter part of : 1910 the pneumonic plague first appeared in Harbin, a town in Manchuria, under Chinese control, says the New York "World." Harbin 1 is on the Trans-Siberian railroad, and was the original hotbed of disease. It was believed that the plague was carried into Harbin by the fur dealers and by Chinese labourers returning to their , homes to celebrate New Year's Day, a custom universally observed in China. From Harbin the plague rapidly spread in all directions, usually following the lines of traffic along the railroads. iiy January 24th, 1911, 1500 Chinese «-nd 27 Europeans, two of whom were physicians and one an assistant, had died of it, according to Captain James Joseph Xing, writing in the "Medical Record." 'Nearly all those who the disease died of it. ; Wherever the Chinese coolies from' the north have travelled they have car-, ried this disease. From 1910 up to 1917 : China has net been free from it. In' the early part of 1917 aboat 200,000 Chinese' coolies,, collected from the northern part of China, where the pneumonic plague hats raged at intervals since 1910, were sent to France as -■ labourers. , They made, splendid - labourers in France, and were in back of the lines during the German drive of March. 1918. No doubt mar.y of them w.ere captured by the Germ,-.- t that time. 'Hence the outbreak oi . l in the German. Army. The disease first broke out last spring in-the German Army,-where it is said to have been very serious. We next beard of it in Spain, hence.the name Spanish jnfluenza. The name is .really a misnomer, but it has stuck, probably because it is'the first epidemic of influenza Spain has ever had.