SOURCE OF INFLUENZA.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15159, 5 March 1920, Page 9

SOURCE OF INFLUENZA.

j A large question is prompted' by anarticle in the LaucQt discussing a recent address to jbhe Cougresa-of \ Aiiicrioan sigians and Surgeons. Can medical Science I trace the more' "deadly epidemics which periocjically sWeep the globe' to their' source, and tackle them before they wreak evil on a large scale? A prominent Americahphysiciain Dr.; Flexner, suggests that this should . bi^ accomplished. . in ".part at least.-' "ffe takes the case' of I the eradication of disease in yellow 'fever; Medical '. 'scifflicc' scotched yellow fevef in'i its endemic hpiho beforo it became cpir domic; Natiiriilly the', question' arises out of a discussion ; ,on these lines whether a disease like'' ihflheriza" cpttld not .be sin'ii- -, larly dealtv'with at birth, so to speak. And it is; hopeful that on this point the j doctors disagree. The problem is to j locate a defyiite endemic home at all for influenza., Dji-. Ploxner is pretty dogmatic lin insisting; that this disease took its origin in a iregion near tho Russian bori de.r of Turkestan * aiid ' spread along the [trade routes." He. is emphatic 'that the' J "endemic focus" ,-of influenza is. somewhere on 'thp • .eastern border of Russia, and holds"* s.trongly (Jie . view thrat medical science now .-possesses the resources to N clear up. a, region which "by its inaccessibility aiid its neglect has . every twenty-, fiye or .thirty, years- originated waves of disease spreading the woi')d' : over."