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DENGUE (pronounced deng-ga)

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 20 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DENGUE (pronounced deng-ga) , an infectious See also:fever occurring in warm climates. The symptoms are a sudden attack of fever, accompanied by rheumatic pains in the See also:joints and muscles with severe headache and erythema. After a few days a crisis is reached and an See also:interval of two or three days is followed by a slighter return of fever and See also:pain and an eruption resembling See also:measles, the most marked characteristic of the disease. The disease is rarely fatal, See also:death occurring only in cases of extreme weakness caused by old See also:age, See also:infancy or other illness. Little is known of the See also:aetiology of " dengue." The See also:virus is probably similar to that of other exanthematous fevers and communicated by an intermediary culex. The disease is nearly always epidemic, though at intervals it appears to be pandemic and in certain districts almost endemic. The See also:area over which the disease ranges may be stated generally to be between 32° 47' N. and 23° 23' S. Throughout this area " dengue " is constantly epidemic. The earliest epidemic of which anything is known occurred in 1779–178o in See also:Egypt and the See also:East Indies. The See also:chief epidemics have been those of 1824–1826 in See also:India, and in the See also:West Indies and the See also:southern states of See also:North See also:America, of 1870-1875, extending practically over the whole of the tropical portions of the East and reaching as far as See also:China. In 1888 and 1889 a See also:great outbreak spread along the shores of the See also:Aegean and over nearly the whole of See also:Asia See also:Minor. Perhaps " dengue " is most nearly endemic in See also:equatorial East See also:Africa and in the West Indies.

The word has usually been identified with the See also:

Spanish dengue, meaning stiff or See also:prim behaviour, and adopted in the West Indies as a name suit-able to the curious cramped movements of a sufferer from the disease, similar to the name " See also:dandy-fever " which was given to it by the negroes. According to the New See also:English See also:Dictionary (quoting Dr See also:Christie in The See also:Glasgow Medical See also:Journal, See also:September 1881), both ".dengue " and " dandy " are corruptions of the See also:Swahili word dinga or denga, meaning a sudden attack of See also:cramp, the Swahili name for the disease being ka-dinga pepo. See See also:Sir See also:Patrick See also:Manson, Tropical Diseases; a See also:Manual of Diseases of Warm Climates (1903).

End of Article: DENGUE (pronounced deng-ga)

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