In one of the many polar nights, typical of the long Russian winter, the temperature in Petersburg was 35 degrees below zero. Then, suddenly, something incredible happened: the thermometer rose by a good 40 degrees, stopping at 5 above zero. It was the night of January 2, 1782, and the chronicles of the time described it as an extraordinary change in the air which caused a sudden flu epidemic among the population which apparently infected at least 40 people on the same day.
It is one of many episodes drawn from accounts of the flu epidemics that swept across Europe in the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. A difficult era for medicine which, in fact, still fought "with bare hands" against all diseases. Not excluding recurring flu epidemics. In this case, a very vague diagnostic ability led the doctors of the time to attribute the causes of the ailment to atmospheric "influences" (hence the name), but also to natural phenomena or the repetition of cosmic cycles: all interpretations and explanations which were linked, for the most part, to speculations dating back to the medicine of classical antiquity.
Between 1836 and 1837, as had already happened in previous years and as will happen later, Europe was hit by an influenza epidemic. All countries were affected, including Italy. In Rome, in those years, the periodical "Diario di Roma" was printed. An eclectic publication. In practice, a collection of news of various kinds ranging from archaeological excavations to obituaries of illustrious men up to meteorological observations of the Observatory of the Roman College. Important space in the pages of the "Diary" was also reserved for the chronicle of events considered of particular interest: facts not only from Rome and Italy, but also from the main European countries. And in the year 1837 one word began to appear more and more frequently in published accounts: "grippe".
The chronicles tell that the flu changed its name to "grippe" in 1743, during the umpteenth epidemic. The origins are unclear. Some argue that it comes from the Russian "chrip" or the Polish "crypka", both meaning "hoarseness", "rattle". Others, on the other hand, trace the denomination back to the fact that all the patients had uniform general symptoms which led to wrinkled, contracted or emaciated features, in a word to a "seized" face.
The fact is that in the years 1836-37, an epidemic wave of "grippe" started from England which unfortunately, but this condition often occurred, overlapped with another recurring dismal passage in Europe: that of the so-called "Asiatic cholera" . Thus the boot, in 1837, underwent a double attack from the north and from the south. In February, after having spread to England, France, Spain and Germany, the flu epidemic spread to northern Italy. And around the same time, both in Palermo and in Naples, cholera also made its appearance, which would then go up the peninsula until it put Pope Gregory XVI's Rome under siege a few months later.
In this framework, the reports of the "Diary of Rome" punctuate a sort of health bulletin before its time, of a Europe – in the year 1837 – in check of a sneaky, unpredictable and malignant flu disease. A climate that seems to postpone, in due proportion, to our unfortunate 2020, with today's Europe grappling with covid.
But, going back to 1837, already in January – according to the news published by the “Diary of Rome”, the “grippe” in England, “…makes the greatest massacre". In London "all the civil and military hospitals are full of sick people, and all day long one is obliged to refuse many people who present themselves to be treated”. In Scotland, in Edinburgh “…the disease has developed with a great intensity… there is hardly a house, where there is not some person attacked…”, and also in Ireland it is rampant: “…in some places he makes appalling massacres... "
It's certainly no better in France. In February, the dispatches from Paris are of the same tenor:“…half the population…is attacked by the grippe". Indeed, in the French capital, it is now faster to count the healthy than the infected, as: … colleges, boarding houses, barracks, hospitals, prisons are especially invaded by them”. And the infection doesn't seem to look anyone in the face. The "grippe", in fact, also breaks into Parliament:”…the flu affects the deputies a lot, today's session was almost always interrupted by the clamor of stubborn coughs”, to the point that “the members of the Commission have asked permission to speak softly, so as not to irritate their chest too much…”, while the President, adopting another very empirical remedy: "...he often goes drinking a few sips of water neck pumpkin”.
In February, the epidemic reaches the countries of central and northern Europe: Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark. The "Diary of Rome" reports that in Frankfurt many people are attacked by the "grippe". In The Hague it rages:”…the employees are missing from the offices… the shows have stopped, the schools are partly deserted”. In Copenhagen the contagion is so widespread among the military that it is no longer possible to carry out daily guard duty, while the number of the spread of the disease arrives from Brussels:”…there are more than 35 people affected by the disease”.
In March comes the news of the contagion of Ferdinand VII of Spain: “…Kings and several of the leading members of his government are attached to it”. Madrid is under siege: “… the contagion makes frightening progress. Malignant epidemics are decimating the sick in hospitals”. But bad news is also coming from Spain on the behavior of the authorities. On the one hand, a central government which, instead of intervening to help the population, waits for the population itself to get out of trouble, and which therefore: “…calls for help from the public generosity to prevent its development, but this appeal is met coldly”, on the other hand, the behavior of city administrations is denounced, whose members:”…they show themselves more concerned with intrigue than with the general good”.
And then, there is Italy. The "grippe", as mentioned, descends from the north. In March it is in Genoa, where it spreads rapidly: "... there is no longer any family, public establishment, religious or civil body, where there are no number of sick people", but at the same time also invades Turin, Venice and Tuscany. Immediately afterwards, Bologna is among the hardest hit: about 50 citizens become infected, more than two thirds of the population. Finally, in April it reaches the capital. Here, about 15% of the population falls ill: over 20 Romans fall prey to the "grippe".
Also in 1837, in the midst of the epidemic, Prof. Cav. Domenico Meli, a famous doctor at the time who had also dealt with cholera and for this reason had been sent by the Pope to Paris, published a pamphlet on the "grippe": "Admonitions to the people on the epidemic catarrh commonly referred to as grippe", in which he "admonishes" precisely the population "that he does not get caught up in exaggerated fears and knows the true way in which he should be treated". The diagnosis of Meli is obviously in line with the medical knowledge of the time, even if there are some small doubts: “…la grippe, and this seems certain to us, depends on a particular atmospheric constitution, although not entirely well known”. And in another passage, he does not exempt himself from a comparison between flu and cholera which is particularly explanatory: “…such an epidemic (la grippe), which manifestly derives from atmospheric circumstances as it is, unlike the cholera which depends on the contagion”.
In other words, as far as cholera is concerned, the contagionist theory was consolidated among the doctors of the time, i.e. the transmission through healthy and sick man contacts, while for the flu the fixed point remained that the fundamental cause derived from:”…many and strange atmospheric vicissitudes” which then causedinflammatory chest diseases”. And going into more detail, Prof. Meli always explained: “…if suddenly the southern wind blows north, or a lot of rain and snow, the human machine can only be affected”.
Consequently, to combat the malignant "grippe", in the first place it was recommended to "preserve oneself from the various impressions of the atmosphere” and then "eat sparingly with foods that are easy to digest”. In short, a healthy lifestyle, to which could be added, if necessary: a purgative, usually castor oil, and some sweat drink. And only as a last resort, was the "mother" of all medicines of the past taken into consideration: bloodletting. With respect to which, Prof. Meli, it must be said, however, expressed more than one doubt:”… being the bloodletting in the grippe a very dubious remedy and therefore not to be practiced with such indifference and ease”. But, in particularly serious cases, it could not be avoided, i.e. when: "...the pulse was rather stiff, the difficulty in breathing was very frequent, the pain in the head was severe, the heat was great and the skin was rather dry, in a nutshell, if there was a tendency to form rather serious blood congestions ... one would bleed". In a certain sense, it was used a bit as a last resort, a kind of "intensive therapy" of the time.
The "grippe", with the end of the year 1837, disappeared from the chronicles of the time. But it was only a short break. Throughout the 1889th century, other flu epidemic waves recurred more or less regularly until the great pandemic of 1864. A luminary of the time, Roberto Giacomo Graves, professor of medical institutions in the medical school of Ireland, still wrote in XNUMX : “It is likely that the influenza (influence) mainly depends on the telluric influence, and which recognizes as a cause some disorders in the physical agents that modify the external surface of our planet; but in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot speak by guess, and must guard against slipping into purely speculative and useless investigations. What is the frequency of these disorders, what laws they obey, here is qwhat remains to be known”. Fortunately, that darkness that seemed impenetrable for XNUMXth-century medicine would lighten up shortly thereafter, right at the end of the century, when the Dutch botanist Martinus Willem Beijerinck, studying some infected tobacco leaves, discovered much smaller pathogens. of the bacteria that he called viruses for the first time.
