INFLUENZA EPIDEMICS.

Matamata Record, Volume XIII, Issue 1108, 24 March 1930, Page 3

INFLUENZA EPIDEMICS.

CAUSED BY A GERM. Remedies for the Complaint. (By Dr Harry Roberts.) Outbreaks of influenza have sx certain periodicity; so that epideanaological prophets are able to foretell with an approximation to accuracy when the next recurrence may ibe'texpected. Equally periodic are the discoveries of the real and authentic germ responsible for this disease. The latest announcement hails from Chicago, and has already been given wide publicity in the press. The average layman seems to take it for granted that as so many hitherto inexplicable diseases have been traced to the activity of bacteria and other lowly organisms, every disease will ultimately prove to have its own specific causative germ. Hence there is always an eager and credulous public ready to respond to scare-headings about the cancer germ, the influenza germ, or. whatever other individual of the species, comes ipto the limelight. \ Most of these nine days’ wonders turn out to dc of a piece with the Christmas ghost and the autumnal sea-serpent, which always appear punctually in accordance with seasonal publicity needs. The Crucial Tests. It is, of course, quite likely that there is such a thing as a specific germ or virus whose presence is essential to an outbreak of influenza. Up to the present, however, no such specific organism has been proved responsible. Several kinds of bacteria have been found in influenza patients, but their appearance would seem to be merely coincidental, and in no way essential or causative. In the history of bacteriology several instances are to be found of germs which for long have been held to be the causative agents in this or that disease, yet have ultimately turned out to be but irrelevant accompaniments of the disorder ! A germ cannot safely be regarded as the true cause of a disease until it has been successfully isolated; and, having been artificially cultivated, has, on being inoculated into a healthy individual—human or animal —given rise to the symptoms of the parent patient. Submitted to this test, all claimants to the title of the influenza germ have hitherto failed to establish their position. Finding a Remedy. It is an interesting and significant fact that, although influenza is conrightly considered —an infectious disease, it has not been found possible to infect a healthy person by merely inoculating his nostrils with material derived from the nose or the throat of one suffering from the disorder. —is needed to produce an individual From this it would appear that, in any event, something more than the presence of the germ—if there is one attack, to say nothing of ah epidemic. It is, indeed, quite possible—it would be truer to say probable—that any bacterium or virus specifically in-t voWed is almost always and everywhere present in civilised communities. It would seem that, at certain times and in certain conditions, cli-* matic and otherwise, this omnipresent and ordinarily harmless germ is activated and rendered potent for all. If this ultimately turns out to be the story of influenza, and o? influenza epidemics, the conviction of some specific organism will not carry us very far toward fited&g a remedy. Far more important would seem to be the discovery of those circumstances and conditions which turn the organism’s innocence into malignity. Doctors’ Hope. Doctors are always hopeful that, when any disease has been traced to the activities of a particular bacillus or other micro-parasite, it will be found practicable to prepare some vaccine or serum which, being inoculated, will render us immune to that particular disorder. We know that many diseases rarely occur more than once in the same individual, even though he be again exposed to the possibility of infection. In other words, one attack will maek him immune; and it has been found possible to prepare atenuated vaccines which, without giving rise to the more serious or dangerous manifestations of the disease itself, yet provoke the individual to such a reaction as affords effective immunity against it. But an attack of influenza notoriously does not produce immunity, at any rate, for more than a very short period of time. Plenty of people seem to be infected in the course of every epidemic that occurs. Greater Knowledge Needed. It is hardly likely that any vaccine will do more in the way of immunity (Continued in Next Column)

than is secured by an actual attack* It would seem, therefore, that we are more likely to secure mastery—partial if not complete—over this most widespread of all contemporary epidemics occurring among western people by a fuller knowledge of the environmental and other circumstances predisposing: to influenza than bjr.the identification of a particular germ or virus which we could not hope to eradicate;-- # • In this connection it is interesting to find tha tmany common diseases, presumably still associated with the activities of the same specific organism—for example, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, and smallpox—have materially altered in character within the last fifty years. In the matter of personal and collective hygiene we have too often been content to stake everything on a few principles, souiV; so far as they go, but by no means inclusive of the totality of conditions essential to human life.