§ MR. CLYNESTo ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to the fact that an epidemic of sickness, chiefly pneumonia, has broken out amongst the men in His Majesty's Navy at present at Chatham; and, if so, whether he can state the number of men who have died, and also to what is the cause of the epidemic ascribed.
987 (Answered by Mr. Edmund Robertson.) The only sickness at Chatham that partakes of the nature of an epidemic is influenza, which is prevalent there as elsewhere, and this has been followed in a few instances by pneumonia. Four men have died within the last fortnight of this latter disease. No cause can be ascribed for the outbreak of influenza, which is apparently seasonal.