ORIGIN OF THE INFLUENZA PLAGUE

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 101, 23 January 1919, Page 4

ORIGIN OF THE INFLUENZA PLAGUE

INTRODUCTION TO EUROPE. In the latter part of 1910 the pneumonic, .plague first appeared in Harbin, a town in Jlanohuria, under Chinese control, says tho New York "World." Harbin is on the Trans-Siberian railroad, and was, the original hotbed of disease. It was believed that the plngne was carried into Harbin by the fur dealers and by Chinese labourers returning , to tlieir homes to celebrnto New Year's .Day, a custom universally observed in China. From Harbin the plc.gno rapidly spread in nil directions, usually following -tho lines of traffic along the railroads.

Bv January 24,. 1911, 1500 Cliineee and 27 Europeans, two of whom were physicians and one an assistant, had died of it. according to Captain James Joseph King, writing in the "Medical 'Record." Nearly all those who had the disease died of itr

Wherever the Chinese coolies from the north have travelled they have carried this disease. From 1910 m> to. 1917 China hi>s not been free from it.

In the early part of 1917 about 200,000 Chinese coolies, collected from the northem jiart of China, where the pneumonic plague Jiae ratted at intervals since 1910, were sent to France as labourers; They' made splendid labourers in France, and were in back of the linos during the German drive of March, 1918. 'No doubt many of them were captured by the Germans at that time. Hence the outbreak of it in the, German Army.

The disease first broke out Inst- spring' in the Germnn Army, where.it is. said to have, been very serious. Wβ next heard of it in Spain, hence the name Spanish influenza." The name is really a misnomer, but it has stuck, probably because it is the firet epidemic of influenza Spain has ever had.