From the Archives: Influenza in Bombay. Fearful Mortality Record.

The influenza epidemic has reached distressing dimensions here [Bombay]. Death rate in the city last week was 99.97 per mile but mortality this week is higher and apart from influenza, health conditions of the town are better than usual. The burning ghats are perpetually surrounded by crowds of pitiable sights and cemeteries witness similarly large funeral parties. The chief sufferers are the poor whose crowded conditions of life, poverty and prejudices make them ready victims. The ‘Times of India’ early this week demanded that to assist the Health Officer the problem of prevention and assistance for the poor should be taken up with the same earnestness as the propaganda for subscriptions to the war loan and called on the sanitary association to take the matter up.