The epidemic or Pandemic of Influenza in 1708-1709

Abstract

In the years 1708 and 1709 an outbreak of respiratory disease afflicted almost all of western Europe. It was descnbed by the famous Giovanni Maria Lancisi (1654-1 720), who designated it as epidemia rheumatica, (1) a term which reflects the Hippocratic and Galenic concept that the disease is a rheuma or flow of noxious humors which descend from the brain (2). The outbreak was discussed repeatedly by Lancisi's contemporaries (3) and by writers of subsequent times. Recently the subject was studied anew by the senior author of (4) the present essay, who agreed with several previous commentators in characterizing the disease as inJuenza, and by Prof. Guillermo Olagüe de Ros (5), who used such equivalent Spanish terms as brote pipa1 and gripe. The former of these recent authors injudiciously designated the outbreak as 'pandemic', while the latter used more conservative term 'epidemic' and included with his discussion a map, which shows the affected area to have included almost all of western Europe and part of central Europe, including Carniola (in what is now Yugoslavia), as well as Bohemia and westem Poland. Left blank or situated beyond the limits of the map are Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean islands west of Sicily. (see: Dynamis, vol. 1, page. 72 (1981)).