INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3279, 26 July 1911, Page 8

INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

RACING IN SYDNEY.

CHILDREN DOWN WITH PNEUMONIA. Influenze is raging throughout Sydney and suburbs. The outbreak is severe in character, and in many cases it is turning to pneumonia. In the majority of cases, although the symptoms are acute, the attack readily yields to treatment, and does not incapacitate the patient for more than three or four days. The condition of many elderly people, however, becomes grave, especially when bronchial trouble is marked, and some deaths have occurred. The disease is no respecter of persons. Eight out of the thirteen medical officers at the Sydney hospital have been down to it, and a number of the nurses. The medical superintendent himself is at the present moment a victim. At Priuce Alfred Hospital the same trouble is being experienced. The rolls of outpatients have been considerably increased as the result of the epidemic, and the admission of others has been unavoidable where chest complications have set in. The Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children has a large number of patients down with bronchitis and pneumonia, which may, or may not, be primarily due to influenza. Chest trouble seems to be the main feature of the present- outbreak, the gastric form not being much in evidence. In some cases, however, the disease has been present in both forms. A good many medical men in the metropolis are, and have been, victims, and the epidemic has thinned the ranks of school children and reduced the strength of city business staffs. The advice of medical men was to go to bed find own yourselves beaten when the symptoms manifest themselves, and thus perhaps ward off bronchitis and pneumonia. The importance of obtaining medical advice was emphasised in all cases where chest complications are indicated.