1918-20年臺灣各地的流行性感冒疫情

The Spanish Influenza in Taiwan (1918-1920)

在日治時期的流行性感冒的統計資料中，流行性感冒有兩類，一類是普通的感冒，從1906 到1943 年的統計資料，除了1918 到1920 年，每年都有幾百名臺灣居民死於流行性感冒，但是1918-1920 年則驟然增加為數千名甚至高達兩萬名的死亡人數。顯然這就是當時全球流行的西班牙型流行性感冒。筆者曾經撰文，全面敘述當時臺灣全島的疫情，對於臺灣各地的流行狀況，著墨較少。本文針對於當時各廳流行狀況，包括初期、中期、末期的病患和死亡人數；各地醫療資源，醫院和醫師及漢醫（醫生）的分布，民眾對於流感的應對方法；各個族群罹病狀況，以及對臺灣經濟和社會所造成的衝擊，予以討論。本文並將當時《臺灣醫學會雜誌》和《臺灣日日新報》的相關報導，予以摘錄，以補充本文無法充分敘述的闕失。

Spanish influenza hade made terrible damage through the world. But what it had done to Taiwan still without any paper to discuss. There were 3.66 millions residents that included Japanese, Taiwanese and a little aborigine lived in Taiwan. Keelung was the most important harbor that the travelers out and in to Taiwan. So that Spanish influenza landed Taiwan from this place and separated through trains, island-line ship and other transportation instruments to every place of the islands. There were three waves of Spanish influenza happened in Taiwan. The first wave was from June to Sep. in 1918, and second from Oct. to the end of the year; the third was from Dec. of 1919 to Feb. of 1920. All the waves, the first sick men were begun in Taipei, especially in Japanese community. It appealed Japanese were the first group be infected, then gradually extent to Taiwanese. The hospitals were shorted, so that there were crowded with the sick men. Japanese and rich of Taiwanese could have better medical care; but most of Taiwanese just had folk therapy and pray to gods for help. In this hard time there were more than 920 thousands people were infected and about 45 thousands were killed by the influenza virus. The sources of medical care were poorly, there were 71 hospitals and about 700 physicians who more than a half just had been educated less than 4 years medical training. Because Taiwanese were poor in economics condition and lack of the modern knowledge of medical care, they persuaded the help from gods and the therapy of ethnobotany. Too much people died that stirred the mercy of the rich who donated amount of money to help the sick poor.