Catch-22 vocabulary

She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the elite.

Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace: With bonus material from Give War and Peace A Chance by Andrew D. Kaufman

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If he hadn’t starved himself, he wouldn’t have been caught by La Grippe. He had been run down, and he had not had the strength to throw off the germ of disease which had invaded his system.

Jack London. Martin Eden (1909)

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Someone hearing I was not well asked if I was not afraid to catch the “grippe” which was raging at that time while another benevolent individual reassured me by remarking: “Don’t be afraid, it only attacks the young, people of your age don’t run much risk of it.”

Marcel Proust. In Search of Lost Time [volume 7]

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A severe and unseasonable attack of grippe had confined that good lady to her house ever since the occasion of her last visit to Green Gables.

Lucy Maud Montgomery. Anne of Green Gables (1909)