The medical officer of health for Manchester, Dr Niven, in a new leaflet he has just issued, states that influenza is again prevalent in Manchester and, in warning the public of its "highly infectious" and "very fatal" nature, describes the precautions that should be taken.
Crowded rooms should be avoided, and the sick should be isolated at once, in the household as well as in the factory and workshop. In cases of illness at work and inability to walk home, a telephone message should be sent to "City 8680 Medical" for an ambulance.
Whenever possible, the sufferer should have a separate room. The room should be ventilated by an open window, so as to lessen the risk to others, but as the sick are liable to develop pneumonia, they must be kept warm by a sufficiency of bedclothes. When there is fog, the window should be closed and a fire kept in the room. Sick persons should not return to work except under medical advice.
The outset of the attack is the most infectious period. Warm clothing should be worn during the outbreak and, in order to resist the disease, a sufficiency of proteid food - such as oatmeal, flour, peas, beans, lentils, herrings, mackerel and milk - is needed by both healthy workers as well as school children.
Inquiries made yesterday indicated that, in the northern districts of the city, there is more influenza in middle class than in working class homes. In the southern districts, Moss Side and Rusholme have suffered most, and in Rusholme children seem to have been affected more than adults.
The provision of doctors
The Central Medical War Committee is taking all steps in its power to meet the situation created by the epidemic of influenza. The names of doctors recommended for commissions who practice in districts reported to be seriously affected by the epidemic have been temporarily withheld (says the "British Medical Journal") and the Ministry of National Service has been asked to apply to the military authorities for assistance from R.A.M.C officers stationed in such localities.
Further, the Board of Education has been asked to encourage local educational authorities to release school medical officers from routine inspections during the epidemic.
The war and the epidemic
The "British Medical Journal", in an article on the influenza epidemic, says: "The suggestion that the war and the privations caused by it are in some way responsible for the severity of the pandemic will not hold water. The disease has been little, if at all more severe in Germany and in Austria than in this country, where the restriction of food has been much less, or in South Africa where it has been inappreciable.
"Such influence as the war has had is to be seen in the armies and is to be traced to the congregation of large numbers of men in huts and billets and in crowded transports. It is fresh evidence, if that were needed, that the infection is disseminated by personal contact under conditions in which good ventilation is difficult or impossible."
Over 300 of the nurses in the ten hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board are affected with influenza.
In the borough of Wigan last week twenty seven deaths were notified as directly due to influenza, sixteen to pneumonia, and five to bronchitis. The deaths from influenza represent an annual death rate of about 16 per 1,000.
The death is announced from pneumonia at a military hospital of Lieutenant E J Smith, the amateur international footballer, of the Civil Service Rifles. He has played for Oxfordshire and Middlesex and in the team representing London versus Paris.
