“The Flu”: A Brief History of Influenza in U. S. America, Europe, Hawaii

<h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER III.</h2></div> <h3 class='c012'>INFLUENZA IN HAWAII.</h3> <p class='c013'>Previous to the year 1889 Hawaii had been tolerably free from the “Flu.” Such cases which had appeared in former years were of a mild character, as were also those which prevailed during the 1889–90 epidemic. Epidemic Catarrh has been known in the Hawaiian Islands for many years. The Annals of the early Missionary Fathers mention it.</p> <p class='c014'>Dr. Alonzo Chapin, an early Missionary physician, refers to it; on page 39 of the Author’s “Monograph on Leprosy,” is the following quotation taken from the Doctor’s writings in the years 1836–37: (in Hawaii) “Diseases occur epidemically, as was the case with Catarrh, repeatedly.”</p> <p class='c014'>This epidemic catarrh was probably Influenza in a mild form; or it may have been the epidemic catarrh of the kind known to the physicians of today, as that caused by the Micro-coccus <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Catarrhalis</span>, a globular or spheroid shaped micro-organism.</p> <p class='c014'>South Wind Catarrh: In Hawaii during the season when the South wind prevails, from November to March, epidemic and infectious colds are very common. They are attended with disagreeable frontal headache, nasal discharge, sore throat, fever, aching limbs and body; these are cases of mild “Flu.” Elderly people, middle aged and old foreign residents, and our Aboriginal population are those mostly affected.</p> <p class='c014'>Hawaii today, due to great increase of travel, greater speed of ocean steamers, and its cosmopolitan population, is probably infected, like all other ports of the U. S. A., with several different species or strains of the Influenza Bacillus, and also those of the Micro-coccus Catarrhalis.</p> <h4 class='c012'><i>Contagious Nature of Colds or Catarrhs, so Called.</i></h4> <p class='c013'>It is a well known fact, that when isolated peoples are visited by strangers, whether they arrive by sea or land, epidemic colds speedily appear amongst the residents of these localities.</p> <p class='c014'>The Esquimaux, Indian tribes, residents of South Sea Islands, Caroline, Marshall and Marquesa groups, Pitcairn Island, etc.; isolated peoples and out of the track of travel, when visited by strangers, become affected with epidemic catarrh and cough, which may attack great numbers of them and cause high mortality. Those visitors who carry the germs of the Catarrh show no visible signs of disease themselves.</p> <p class='c014'>Possible sources of Disease: During the past four centuries there is clear evidence that Hawaii has been infected with diseases from certain sources; there is also evidence that is not so clear, yet it is worthy of consideration. From what countries could ships carry diseases to Hawaii before the opening up of <span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>the Islands to foreign trade? Spain, China, Japan and Russia. Since the opening up of the islands to foreign commerce, the ships of all nations have carried to Hawaii a varied assortment of diseases, some nearly harmless, but others of the deadliest kind.</p> <p class='c014'>In the past centuries there are credible records of Spanish visitors, also of Chinese and Japanese, and of a people coming in Praus and Junks with “tufts of hair on their faces,” Formosans, whose speech has an alliance with the Malayo-Polynesian and hence Hawaiian.</p> <p class='c014'>At the present time numerous ships which visit Honolulu carry infectious and contagious diseases amongst their crews and passengers, especially those who travel in the steerage.</p> <p class='c014'>What occurs today at known intervals on a very large scale, most probably happened on a smaller scale at extended and unknown intervals in past centuries; diseases were introduced to Hawaii, and carried from here.</p> <p class='c014'>Castaways and shipwrecked mariners can carry diseases to the shores they arrive at, the same as other voyagers, and probably did so to Hawaii.</p> <p class='c014'>If there was no Tuberculosis in Hawaii before the coming of the Foreigner, then where do the ancient Hawaiian words “<span lang="haw" xml:lang="haw">hookii</span>,” “<span lang="haw" xml:lang="haw">akepau</span>” come from? <span lang="haw" xml:lang="haw">Hookii</span> means, in English, to grow thin in flesh, to waste away; <span lang="haw" xml:lang="haw">akepau</span> means to consume, to finish, hence to eat away.</p> <p class='c014'>Even today inspection of arrivals from oversea ports, and even limited quarantine carefully carried out by competent officials, is not always an effective protection against the introduction of infectious and contagious diseases into any country.</p> <p class='c014'>The following list of contagious and infectious diseases eluded the Quarantine officials at the port of Honolulu and infected the town, some later infected other Islands of the group.</p> <table class='table2' summary=''> <tr> <th class='c008'>Year.</th> <th class='c008'>Month.</th> <th class='c015'>Disease.</th> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'><SPAN name='r1' /><SPAN href='#f1' class='c020'>^[1]</SPAN>1853</td> <td class='c016'>May 13.</td> <td class='c017'>Small-pox.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'><SPAN href='#f1' class='c020'>^[1]</SPAN>1881</td> <td class='c016'>February 4.</td> <td class='c017'>Small-pox.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'>1895</td> <td class='c016'>August 22.</td> <td class='c017'>Cholera.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'><SPAN href='#f1' class='c020'>^[1]</SPAN>1899</td> <td class='c016'>December.</td> <td class='c017'>Plague.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'>1911</td> <td class='c016'>February 23.</td> <td class='c017'>Cholera.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'>1911</td> <td class='c016'>October 27.</td> <td class='c017'>Yellow Fever (?)</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'><SPAN href='#f1' class='c020'>^[1]</SPAN>1918</td> <td class='c016'>June.</td> <td class='c017'>Influenza.</td> </tr> </table> <div class='footnote' id='f1'> <p class='c014'><SPAN href='#r1'>1</SPAN>. Spread to the other Islands of the group.</p> </div> <h3 class='c012'>THE EPIDEMIC OF 1889–90.</h3> <p class='c013'>The 10th Pandemic which had its origin in the month of March, 1889, at Bukhara, Russian Turkestan, ultimately reached <span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>Hawaii, both from Japan and San Francisco: from the former country in August of that year, and from the latter city in December.</p> <p class='c014'>Influenza became epidemic in the Islands in the year 1890, in the months of January, February, March and practically ceased to exist in the latter part of April. Its morbidity was extensive, its death rate almost nil.</p> <p class='c014'>Extract from the Report of the President of the Board of Health to the Legislature: session of 1890.</p> <p class='c014'>“Early in the autumn of the year 1889 a disease started in Russia, which on that account took the name of the Russian disease.”</p> <p class='c014'>It spread rapidly over Europe and the British Isles; very soon it crossed the Atlantic, and with extreme rapidity spread over the whole continent of North America.</p> <p class='c014'>Early in January, 1890, Dr. Trousseau, the port physician, reported many cases existing among passengers, on the mail steamer en route to the Colonies.</p> <p class='c014'>In its journey westward from its initial starting point in Russia to the confines of California, its march has been marked by great prevalence and fatality.</p> <p class='c014'>In Hawaii with its mild and salubrious climate, its intensity is greatly modified, and although it caused great distress and physical suffering, very few deaths have resulted from it. This disease has prevailed as an epidemic on several former occasions under the name of Influenza. Other extracts from the same Report are as follows:</p> <p class='c014'>Agent Reynolds, “Influenza has visited most of the families in town since its arrival, but deaths have been few.”</p> <p class='c014'>Dr. S. B. Swift, “At Kalaupapa, females at the Bishop Home were most affected.”</p> <p class='c014'>Dr. Jared Smith, Kauai. “Extreme prevalence of Influenza of mild type, began the middle of January.”</p> <p class='c014'>Dr. D. Campbell, Waimea, Kauai. “Influenza widespread.”</p> <p class='c014'>Dr. Greenfield, Hamakua, Hawaii. “No Influenza epidemic. Catarrh and Bronchitis; wet and cold weather.”</p> <p class='c014'>Dr. G. Herbert. Wailuku, Maui. “One-third of the population affected: at least 3,000 cases. One Pneumonia case fatal. Symptoms: Fever, frontal and occipital headache, spinal and limb pains. Pulmonary congestion and occasionally Pneumonia.”</p> <p class='c014'>Estimated number of cases of Influenza:</p> <table class='table2' summary=''> <tr> <td class='c019'>Island of Oahu</td> <td class='c019'>6,500</td> <td class='c019'>Population</td> <td class='c018'>28,000</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c019'>〃 Maui</td> <td class='c019'>3,300</td> <td class='c008'>〃 〃</td> <td class='c018'>19,000</td> </tr> </table> <table class='table2' summary=''> <tr><th class='c021' colspan='2'>Deaths in Honolulu</th></tr> <tr> <td class='c016'>February</td> <td class='c018'>3</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c016'>March</td> <td class='c018'>5</td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c016'>&nbsp;</td> <td class='c018'><hr /></td> </tr> <tr> <td class='c016'>Total</td> <td class='c018'>8</td> </tr> </table> <div> <span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span> <h3 class='c012'>EARLIER ARRIVAL OF INFLUENZA.</h3></div> <div class='nf-center-c0'> <div class='nf-center c003'> <div>(Hawaii invaded from Japan.)</div> </div></div> <p class='c014'>On or about the 20th of August, 1889, recently arrived Japanese laborers had Influenza in a mild form.</p> <p class='c014'>This shipment on arrival from Japan, at Honolulu, were transferred immediately from the ocean steamer to the deck of an Inter-Island one, and were landed direct at Onomea and Hakalau plantations.</p> <p class='c014'>The type of Influenza was very mild, never infected other laborers; those who had the disease were segregated for a week.</p> <p class='c014'>At Onomea there were nine cases, at Hakalau eleven. (Author.)</p> <p class='c014'>The epidemic of 1890 left a trail of its own, somewhat different from the way it had acted as an epidemic; for almost a decade cases of the nervous type frequently kept cropping out; these were attended with Insomnia, great prostration, severe neuritis and facial neuralgia; frequent attacks and relapses in the intervals, of this Nervous form of Influenza, were responsible for the decease of Honolulu’s most prominent physician in the year of 1894.</p> <p class='c014'>The last, and fatal attack, the Doctor believed he acquired from visitors to Honolulu from Siberia, that country and European Russia being a continuous source of Endemic Influenza.</p> <h3 class='c012'>DENGUE.</h3> <p class='c013'>Dengue in its initial stage or degree of progress in some respects resembles the Flu, and is often mistaken for it. Such was the case in the years 1900–1901 when imported laborers from Porto Rico, W. I. carried the Dengue or Breakbone fever with them.</p> <p class='c014'>This disease has practically disappeared, a sporadic case of it comes to light now and then. Its transmission by the Mosquito, Culex fatigans, is not yet definitely determined.</p> <p class='c014'>A new and more virulent type or species of the Influenza Bacillus was carried overseas to the port of Honolulu in the third week of June, 1918, and spread to the residents of the town; and it was this new imported type of Influenza that was responsible for the high mortality in the epidemics of that disease in 1918–1920, due to Influenza and complicating Pneumonia, the so-called Pulmonary or Pneumonic form of the disease.</p> <p class='c014'>All these matters have been fully described in the public press, and in part in the Reports of the Board of Health, which q—v.</p> <div class='chapter'> <span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />