Grippe

“ Symptoms.—If a child "catches" grippe, it becomes [609] quite sick abruptly. There is usually chilliness, pains in the muscles all over the body, more or less fever, sometimes nausea and vomiting. If the attack is a more severe one, the prostration is more marked, the temperature higher and the signs of shock and poisoning of the system are more in evidence. A child a few months old can get influenza so severely as to cause collapse and death in thirty-six hours. As a rule the type of grippe most common in infancy is of a very mild character. ”

“ The most important feature with reference to influenza in children is its very active tendency to develop complications. These complications generally affect the respiratory tract. So we find in children suffering from grippe an easy disposition to get bronchitis or broncho-pneumonia. The younger the child the greater the danger.
The disease itself, so long as it remains an uncomplicated influenza, is not of much importance or severity. The lesson to be learnt, therefore, is to treat the disease with respect and take every precaution to avoid the possibility of developing a complication. ”

“ One attack, it is, perhaps, unnecessary to state, does not protect against another. The mortality is about 1 death to 400 cases. The feeble and aged are those who are apt [Pg 109] to succumb. Fatalities usually result from complications or sequels, such as pneumonia or tuberculosis; neurasthenia or insanity may follow.
Symptoms.—There are commonly four important symptoms characteristic of grippe: fever; pain, catarrh; and depression, mental and physical. ”

“ The bowels should be quickly opened by castor oil, and the feedings should be cut down at least two-thirds or one-half.
Public drinking cups should always be avoided and kissing the baby be tabooed.302
GRIPPE
The treatment of influenza in infancy and childhood is to avoid contact with an older person suffering with the grippe. Ordinarily, the so-called "grippe" is a common, mixed infection—not true influenza. Coryza and cough are the chief respiratory symptoms which attend these widespread epidemics. Often vomiting and diarrhea are seen in the young sufferers. ”

“ After the fever subsides there is usually a general sore feeling. Symptoms of bronchitis, pleurisy or pneumonia may develop. Then there is the nervous type, generally with a bad headache, neuralgia, pains in the head, backache, legs and arms ache and prostration. May also have inflammation of nerves. Then again the stomach and bowels may be the main seat, for La Grippe has no respect for any organ. We have then symptoms of acute indigestion with fever, nausea, vomiting, stomach pains or acute bowel trouble with fever, colicky pain in the abdomen ”

“ Epidemic influenza, or as the French call it la grippe, is a disease which has frequently prevailed in all parts of the civilized world, and can not be said to have any definite geographic habitat. In this regard it corresponds with smallpox and other contagious diseases, but it is only during recent years that the fact of its transmission by personal contagion has been generally recognized by physicians, and indeed it is still denied by some. ”

“ Grippe attacks the patient with great suddenness. While in perfect health and engaged in ordinary work, one is often seized with a severe chill followed by general depression, pain in the head, back, and limbs, soreness of the muscles, and fever. The temperature varies from 100° to 104° F. The catarrh attacks the eyes, nose, throat, and larger tubes in the lungs. The eyes become reddened and sensitive to light, and movements of the eyeballs cause pain. Sneezing comes on early, and, after a day or two, is followed by discharge from the nose. The throat is often sore and reddened. ”

“ Grippe, pneumonia or lung fever, and what we call colds are caught in exactly the same way. We used to think we caught them by being chilled; but we are much more likely to take them by being shut up in a hot, stuffy room with other people who already have them. ”

“ When patients have a cold or the grippe, instead of making plain to them what laws of health they have violated and that their illness is a direct result, the doctor, it not infrequently happens, tells them that it is “going around.” Colds and grippe are consequently in the popular mind of mysterious origin, and the victims complacently regard themselves as blameless but unfortunate. ”

“ La Grippe is a highly contagious disease. It prevails epidemically, and after an active epidemic it may remain in the vicinity for a number of years. It is more frequently seen in the late winter months and early spring. ”

“ Use the "Cascade" and open the pores. Wash the stomach, take two or three hot injections daily, and a hot sheet pack. This treatment, with baths and rubbing, will cure an ordinary case of bilious fever in about three days. Avoid all drugs. Nature will call for food when it needs it.
LA GRIPPE. This is the modern name for influenza. It resembles an ordinary cold in its symptoms, but is far more violent in its effects. Acute pains in the head and kidneys are symptoms that are usually present. If neglected, it may develop into pneumonia, or consumption. ”

“ I started off the morning of July 11 on my memorable sled-trip to obtain general views of the main upper part of the Muir Glacier and its seven principal tributaries, feeling sure that I would learn something and at the same time get rid of a severe bronchial cough that followed an attack of the grippe and had troubled me for three months. I intended to camp on the glacier every night, and did so, and my throat grew better every day until it was well, for no lowland microbe could stand such a trip. ”

“ An influenza pneumonia may show the general prostration and cardiac weakness of plague. In influenza pneumonia we have an onset with the features of ordinary influenza, which, however, in the influenza epidemic in 1918 was often short. In plague pneumonia we have pneumonia from the start. The pulse in plague is early weak and rapid and the tendency to a stuporous state more marked. The early appearance of thin watery sputum, which quickly becomes blood-tinged and always contains plague bacilli is noted in plague pneumonia. ”

“ Cases of illness occurring during the months of 1918 and 1919 in which influenza was epidemic and in which the patient remembers that he had the more definite symptoms, (fever, headache, backache, pain in the extremities, pneumonia) and in which he was sick at least three days and in bed at least one day, have been designated as “Yes.” The symptoms chosen are those most likely to be remembered. The individual frequently does not remember all. Statements of the absence of fever are often unreliable. ”

“ In fever we have the tissues and the walls of the blood vessels weakened, we have an increased current of more or less altered blood flowing through the vessels and stagnating in the capillaries, which need but an exciting cause to transform the passive congestion of fever into an active congestion and acute inflammation. These conditions become still more distinct when the fever is accompanied with a decided deterioration in the blood itself, as is seen in influenza, septicemia, and at the termination of severe pneumonias. ”

“ Foreign bodies, such as feed accidentally getting into the lungs by way of the windpipe, as well as the inhalation of irritating gases and smoke, ofttimes produce fatal attacks of inflammation of the lung and bronchial tubes. Pneumonia is frequently seen in connection with other diseases, such as influenza, purpura hemorrhagica, strangles, glanders, etc. Pneumonia and pleurisy are most common during cold, damp weather, and especially during the prevalence of the cold north or northeasterly winds. Wounds puncturing the thoracic cavity may cause pneumonia. ”

“ Blood-poisoning, as surely; with aches, pains, feverish spells, with influenza (popularly called “a cold”) , which, as can not be too much emphasized, is, strictly speaking, instead of a disease, the effort of Nature to “cure” a disease which otherwise would become so deep-seated as to demand a “run of fever” to eliminate it, and all manner of physical ailments.
I am often asked, What constitutes the scrofulous diathesis, so called, or the scrofulous “taint” supposed to be the inheritance of so many of the children of our times? ”

“ In no case was any exceptionally cold weather, intercalated in the period of the epidemic, accompanied with an increase of deaths from influenza, or even with an arresting of the downward course of the curve of mortality, if the cold occurred at the time the epidemic was on the wane. Other diseases which appear to have prevailed most extensively during epidemics of influenza are diseases of the breathing organs, phthisis, diseases of the circulatory system, rheumatism, and diseases of the nervous system. ”

“ It is a widely accepted statement, in textbooks of Pathology at least, that the stage of red hepatization in pneumonia follows the period of engorgement and precedes the grey form. This interpretation is open to question concerning the lesions that are encountered in influenza, as well as in those that are seen after gas inhalation. Unquestionably, in the stage of engorgement the lung has a red appearance, enhanced by the acellular, serofibrinous exudate in the alveoli through which the greatly congested vessels are seen. ”

“ Neuritis—Nerve inflammation; Psychosis—Mental derangement; Otitis media—Inflammation of the ear; and Nephritis—Inflammation of the kidneys.
"Aetiology:—The influenza bacillus (found in blood and excrement) is to be regarded as the cause. The malady is highly contagious. Period of incubation given as, from two to seven days. Runs its course in one or two weeks, recovery as a rule favorable; though convalescence is often protracted. Unfavorable results are brought on through complications, most often by Pneumonia.
"Diagnosis:—Easily determined during an epidemic or marked symptoms. ”

“ These symptoms sometimes occur in the plague, the jail and yellow fever, and the small-pox; but they are the more common characteristics of pleurisy, gout, and rheumatism. They now and then occur in the influenza, the measles, and the puerperile fever.
4. The synochus state of fever is known by a full, quick, and round pulse without tension. The autumnal bilious fever and colic, also the gout, often appear in this form.
5. There is a state of fever in which the pulse is small, but tense and quick. The patient, in this state of fever, is seldom confined to his bed. ”

“ It is well known that influenza is an infectious disease, which rapidly spreads through the family and the community, but it is not so well known that the so-called “common colds,” ordinary sore throat, and tonsillitis are also highly contagious. The infection is carried from one person to another by direct contagion; the air is being constantly sprayed with the germs of disease in talking, laughing, sneezing, and coughing. ”

“ The point of rupture is important, but where so many alveoli are involved, disturbance of continuity will occur, occasionally in such position that the result will be the escape of air into the interstitial tissues. [7] There is ample evidence that this happens. Indeed, among the clinical manifestations of the disease, interstitial emphysema of the lung spreading through the fascial planes to the subcutaneous tissues of neck and thorax is well known; the phenomenon is more frequent and extensive in influenza than in any other disease (8, 17, 52, 143) . ”

“ The symptoms as usually given are as follows: After a period of incubation of from three to six days there is an abrupt onset with congested face and injected conjunctivae. There is pain in head, eyes and back. There is marked malaise with great depression of spirits. There is anorexia with coated tongue and rarely vomiting and diarrhoea. There may be some congestion of the pharynx and even a slight bronchitis. So much in common with influenza has it clinically that a synonym is summer influenza. The liver and spleen are normal. Mental depression is frequently noted. ”

“ Occasionally the stomach and bowels are attacked so that violent vomiting and diarrhea occur, while other members of the same family present the ordinary form of influenza. There is a form that attacks principally the nervous system, the nasal and bronchial tracts escaping altogether. Continual fever is the only symptom in some cases. ”

“ By way of illustration and with reference to atmospheric influence—the grand exciting cause of disease,—every practitioner is familiar with certain conditions which are favourable to the production of certain disorders, such as common catarrh or cold, and its more aggravated form termed influenza,—hooping-cough, bowel affections, gastric fevers, &c. ”

“ This work indicates, not only the possible importance the species may play, but also points to the rôle of the infecting organism which, when sufficiently virulent, incites a characteristic reaction even when inoculated in a minimal quantity into the trachea as distinct from the bronchioles or lung tissue.
Pneumonia unassociated with a simultaneous or preliminary incapacitation of the mechanism of the upper respiratory tract, differs from the pulmonary lesions encountered after measles, gas poisoning, influenza, etc., and those experimentally produced by intrabronchial insufflations. ”

“ The endemic-epidemic influenza vera which arises from the germ remaining after the spread of the influenza pandemic and which is caused by the same germ, the bacillus of Pfeiffer. The duration of this endemic state of influenza vera may last years in single localities.
“3. The endemic influenza nostras, or pseudo-influenza or catarrhal fever, commonly called grip, a disease sui generis. The germs causing this disease are at present as little known as are those of cholera nostras.” ”