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Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 490, 19 July 1890, Page 4

On influenza, as on other subjects, it seems that doctors disagree. In the interesting paper which Professor Biiumler, of Switzerland, has read at the Vienna Medical Congress he traverses at least one point made by the medical authority who gave forth his views in the “Times” the other day. This is as to the way in which the disease was wafted across tho world. In the “Times ” it was remarked that, curious as it might seem, the rapidity with which the disease pursued its course on the present occasion was not one whit superior to its performance a century ago. Then, in spite of the fact that there did not yet exist the steam communication which now covers Europe with a network over land and sea for the interchange of ideas —and diseases —the influenza fiend, according to this authority, spread just as swiftly from land to land. But Professor Biiumler’a account is that “it can be proved almost mathematically that it has followed the railway lines, its velocity being equal to that of the trains.” Hp adds that it has always spread most rapidly where the population has been most dense, and has been rare where intercourse is rpstripted, os in prisons, monasteries, lghatic asylums, and isolated villages, j