INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 6 August 1919, Page 5

INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

DECLINING IN AUSTRALIA

GOOD RESULTS FROM INOCULATION.

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT MELBOURNE, Aug. 5.

Dr. Cumpston's report on the influenza epidemic states that the agents that brought about the decline in the epidemic were not necessarily inoculation, inhalation, or isolation in hospital, but there was a marked intrinsic tendency in the disease towards a natural decline in virulence and infeetivity. He claims that the maritime quarintine was of the greatest value, but says that the land quarantine was quite ineffective under the system recently attempted.

Further, the-'report states that 55,000 soldiers ha.VQ been or will be discharged from the expeditionary force in Australia, nicny of whom will still be infective.

After showing the prevalance of venereal disease in Australia, Dr. Cumpston urges the e&tablis-hment of a Federal Department of Health to direct a campaign against it

])r. Penfold, chief quarantine laboratory officer, repoi-ts regarding the value of inoculation tor inf'uenza that the us© of vaccine was associated with* a fall in the incidence and mortality of the disease, ths ratio of deaths in the inoculated groups being as five to twentytour. A small part of the improvement may have been due to the fact that quick treatment was received by those inoculated. Dr. Penfold says inoculation should have been more widely used and the doses larger. A repetition of inoculation would certainly extend the period of immunity. *