INFLUENZA : ITS CURE AND PREVENTION.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2337, 27 January 1913, Page 7

INFLUENZA : ITS CURE AND PREVENTION.

SOME PRACTICAL ADVICE BY AN M.D. Don’t treat influenza lightly. That is the first important point to be borne in mind by those who do nut desire the prolonged breakdown in health often suffered by people who disregard the dangers of influenza. When you feel the symptoms—that, feverish cold in the head, severe ach ing in the eyeballs, pain in the hack and limbs, with a feeling of soreness, as if the body had been bruised: and of prostration which deprives you; of almost every ounce of energy—go to bed, call the doctor in, and stick to his advice.. Do not get up in three or four days because you feel much better, if your medical man advises rest. Otherwise, the chances are that you will either have a relapse and be forced to go back to bed again, or suffer weeks of distressing convalescence. The earlier the treatment is begun, the better chance you will have of escaping lightly. Your doctor will know how to nip the mischief in the bud ; so don’t waste precious hours in self-doctoring, or you may regret it in after life : for many people, particularly those advanced in years, are never the same after an attack of influenza. VALUE OF REST.

If the doctor is not available for several hours, the best plan is to stay in bed and take a teaspoonful of ammoniated tincture of quinine every two hours and some strong beef-tea with some good cognac brandy in it, for it is of great importance to maintain the body in good condition. Rest is absolutely essential, and often after the fever, which lasts four or five days in ordinary cases, has gone, another three or four days in bed will probably prevent serious complications, for few people seem to realise that influenza, particularly an acute attack, affects the heart more or less. POISON AND GERMS. During an attack of influenza a ccr " tain amount of little-understood poison is manufactured by the influenza germs—so often the cause of epidemics of this disease —and this being poured out into the blood, attacks the muscles of the walls of the heart, leaving them in a weakened condition. The consequence is that physical exertion by a person who is recovering from an attack of the "flue” iis dangerous.

The heart can easily get the better of the peculiar poison generated in an attack, if it is allowed favourable conditions in its struggle. Those conditions arc simply rest and freedom from even ordinary exertion. It often happens that a business man who is suffering from an attack of influenza is so greatly improved at the end of four or five days that he decides to go hack to business, although his doctor has told him to rest in bed for a few days more.

Possibly for a day or two he .is able to get through his work without much inconvenience, but soon he begins to find that he does not possess the energy and lasting power which he could previously boast oi. He finds himself fagged at night, and nervous, and at last is obliged to take two or three weeks’ holiday in order to get himself into a tit condition again. This is simply the result, of overtaxing the heart at a time when it was chronically weak. If the patient had remained in bed for three or four days more ha would probably have saved hinisel' further suffering. DEATH FROM INFLUENZA.

Only about one person in a hundred dies of influenza, but it is a nota’do fact that a great increase in sudden deaths from heart failure during recent years in the summer months in great cities has hern largely laid to the account of heart weakness caused by influenza attacks. In one notable case the patient, insisted on going back to "the office the day after symptoms of a mild attack of .influenza had subsided. His physician ordered him to stay in bed, but the patient, who insisted he was well because he felt well, paid uo attention* to IBs doctor’s instructions, went to fiis office, collapsed a few hours later, and died from acute heart failure.—“ Tit Bits.”