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Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17949, 16 November 1918, Page 6

Although the present viralent type of influenza is known as " Spanish," at) least one authority thinks that th)e designation ought to be'American. Ho says that the disease flourished in the United States last year, was carried over to Spain in the spring of this year, and finding there a congenial soil, it spread amazingly. The American origin, however, is likely to be disputed. The Now York "Medical Journal" some weeks ago, referring .to tho epidemic that affected a large part of North America in 1917, stated that it "resembled grippe quite closely, but was marked by more severe symptoms than this Spanish outbreak, Very careful bacteriological investigation of the American epidemic showed the absence of the influenza bacillus, but seemed to indicate that the condition was due to a mixed infection of the respiratory tract in which the streptococcus played an important role." Oddly enough there is some uncertainty about the bacteriological identification of the present epidemic. It is influenza, clearly enough, but presumably influenza with a mixture of something else. Nob that influenza needs any mixture of germs to cause it to manifest itself in different ways. One of its characteristics is that it attacks the weakest part of the body or so weakens the weakest part that dangerous complications readily arise. Since it attacks the respiratory tract it may set up acute bronohitis, and that in turn may lead to pneumonia. Or it may so affect the digestive organ that the patient is able to take no food. Kidney complications have been marked features of some epidemics, nervous complications of others, and severe brain troubles of others. So far bronchitis, pneumonia and gaatritia are tho severe complications most commonly reported in this epidemio.

The earlier reports from Spain concerning the epidemio there declared that it affected men chiefly, women to a markedly less extent, and children scaroely at all. These conditions did not long continue, though it is still asserted that men are attacked much more freely than women, and adults than children, and men, as a rule, suffer more severely than do women. Normally influenza is supposed to run its course of lassitude, fever and headache in three or four days, but that is in mild cases in which no complications occur. One experienced medical man says that, except in tho very mildest and simplest form, he would not take the responsibility of advising the patient's return to work in less than seven days from the onset. Ho adds the special warning that the patient must not be too anxious to presume on a fall in the temperature, and refers to an actual temperature chart made during the past fortnight to show that the course of the disease may bo very much that of a relapsing fever.

The steps that are now being taken, very tardily, to organise the campaign against influenza should help materially to relieve the sufferings of the patients and to check the spread of the infection. The main difficulty is to secure attendance for the thousands of sufferers. If from the outset the patients could have been sent to .temporary hospitals, say, in the schools, the severe coses being drafted into the main hospitals, the whole campaign would have been simplified because the attendance would have been concentrated where it was needed. Something of tho sort may havo to be done even now if the epidemic continues to spread, because there simply will not be help enough available to treat ail patients in their own homos. However, the volunteers who are now offering their services to tho district committees will be an immense help. And the spirit of tho "cooks and bottl'e-washers," who are rendering all kinds of voluntary service from nursing to running messages, from cooking broths and soups to washing bottles for the dispensers, is beyond all praise. It is the spirit that is needed in every crisis, more abundantly displayed during the war period than ever before, and it is now in its full bloom, and a very magnificent flower of citizenship it is.