INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15306, 6 August 1923, Page 6

INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC.

DANGER OF. PNEUMONIA,

NOT VIRULENT TYPE. A RADICAL DISTINCTION. The recent fatal cases of influenza followed by pnuemonia serve to draw attention to a very radical distinction between winter epidemics, stressed by Dr. Armstrong (says the Sydney Guardian). " Pneumonic influenza " is the term coined in 1918 to designate the deadly epidemic which swept across the world in that year. It reached Australia in 1919, and was responsible for hundreds of fatalities, though it was by then not nearly so deadly as its first manifestation on the battlefields of Europe just prior to the Armistice. Not " Influenza" at All. This epidemic was a virulent threeday fever, which was followed without intermission, in 90 per cent, of cases, by a fatal attack of pneumonia. It was caused- —as proved by Nicolle and Lebailly in 1918—by a virus which could pass through a germ-proof filter, and was not " influenza" in the ordinary sense at all. This virulent disease has not reappeared to any extent since it died out in Australia in 1919—its last port of call. Ordinary influenza is an infection of the throat and lungs by a mixed invasion of at least five species of germs the most important being the so-called

" influenza " bacillus of Pfeiffer. If reasonable care is not taken to avoid a chill after an attack of this milder disease, the patient is liable to contract pneumonia, but no more so than after an attack of measles or any other depressing infection. In true virulent influenza, however, the rarity was for pneumonia not to supervene. The germ of pneumonia is a natural inhabitant of the mouth of every healthy human being, and apparently lives there quietly under ordinary circumstances without doing mischief. Once the virus of the 1918 epidemic got into the system, however, it was a different story. The harmless germ turned on its host, and quickly involved his weakened system in a deadly struggle with death. "Go Slow." The cause of this change in the pneumococcus is still a mystery, but the most rational explanation puts it down to the exhaustion in the blood (by the virus) of some substance that kept the germ of pneumonia in check. Pneumonia supervening on ordinary influenza may be due to perhaps a similar weakening of the body's defences, but in a majority of cases is due to insufficient care to avoid exposure after an attack of " 'flu." The best advice we can give the influenza brigade, both to avoid pneumonia or a fatal attack of failure of a weakened heart is, therefore, that of our original influenza warning—- " Go slow!"