| OCR Text |
Show . The Flu Is Coming Back. By Frederic J. Haskin. f 4 WASHINGTON'. P. C, Aug. 6. If you hope to keep your health tfiis autumn, cret yourself into the pink of physical condition, con-dition, and lake all possible precautions to avoid infection. For the flu is &oing to hit us acrain, and the amount of damage dam-age it will "do depends largely upon how well we prepare lor it. This is the cheer-in? cheer-in? mest-asre of Dr. Otto Geier of Cincinnati, Cin-cinnati, secretary of the American Medical Medi-cal association. Already the visitation of the mopt dramatic dra-matic and destructive piague of modern times is beginning to grow dim in the memories of manv people, and this despite de-spite the fact that there are reminders of it everywhere. Nearly everyone has a friend who is not able" to work us he did before he got the flu. Nearly everyone every-one who has traveled during the past year and inquired for oid friends has heard again and again the depressing words, "he died of the flu!" Nearly everyone has noticed, too, the surprising number of women with short hair. Som of these are afflicted with artistic inclinations, but most of them gave up their crowning glory reluctantly enough after having the f u. Indeed, in some sections the flu is said to have created cre-ated quite a vogue for bobbed hair. Short hair is the least serious of the after-effects of influenza. Dr. Geier says that it will add 40 per cent to the mortality mor-tality rate for the next five years. This means that 40 per cent more people will die than would have died had there been no flu. They will die because this strangely strange-ly weakening disease has sapped their resistance to other diseases. These fearful after-affects of the flu. even more than the number of lives it destroys at once, make it a national calamity ca-lamity which we can ill afford to pass through again. The country is strewn with men who thought that they were in their prime, and who got over the flu only to find that they were old and about done; with women who can no longer be wives or mothers since they had the flu. and with children whose growth has been checked. One or two more winters with such epidemics, and the United States will have suffered almost as much loss of humnn power as some European countries coun-tries did through the war. Jn support of his claim that the Influenza Influ-enza epidemic will recur. Dr. Geier cites the record of the nearly allied disease of la grippe, which appeared in epidemic form in It did not reach its peak until 1301. and two years after that it recurred and destroyed thousands of lives. We have had two other epidemics of grippe or influenza one in 1 S6T and th other in 1 595 and both of these showed the same recurrent quality. In the face of this literal certainty that we will ha. e to combat influenza again next year, we are totally unprepared to do so. Medical sck-nee knows littie more about intluenza today than it did a year fgo, when the scourge was spreading-like spreading-like a prairie fire over all the world. For this, reason, the doctors are making elaborate elab-orate and extensive research into the ; i-Rue and effect of the disease in order ' to try to be better prepared for the next outbreak. Medical mn are hopeful of ! discovering a specific remedy for the flu as was done in the cases of yellow fever, : diphtheria and typnus fever. Among the medical m-n of th!s country 1 making studies of the flu are Dr. William H. Park, famous bacteriologist and head of the bureau of laboratories of the department de-partment of health in New York; Dr. John F. Anderson, former director of the hy-tri.-ne iaborntorv of the federal government, govern-ment, and It. E- D. Fisk, director of the Life Extension Institute. The American 'Medical association Is promoting this research work. At its recent re-cent convention In Atlantic City a resolution resolu-tion was adopted asking congress to appropriate ap-propriate 51 ..v.-O.-jOO to stimulate and encourage en-courage research work. This suggestion was acted upon the other day. when Representative Rep-resentative Fe-s of Ohio introduced a resolution in congress for the appropriation appropria-tion of that amount. The money is to be turned over to the United States puhli.- health service to be used for cooperation co-operation In the research work that s being be-ing carried on by the various state health departments. Not only are the medical men of the country preparing for a reappearance of the disease, but civic, organizations in different communities which undertook to care for the numerous victims of the epidemic a year ago are also making p'.ans atrainst a recurrence of the malady. These ore anizations da not intend to be caught of: their guard in the event of another outbreak, and in a number of towns throughout the United States special commit com-mit te-'S have bn appointed to make preparations for Just such an emergency. During the epidemic a year ago many thousands of people died solely for want of care. In his letter to Congressman Fess. urging urg-ing the federal appropriation, Dr. Geier gives some impressive facts about the flu. He says it caused half a million deaths In this country last year, and that It cost the insurance companies J"J40,-0 J"J40,-0 0."". The economic lo1 to the country, h says, is har,i to estimate, but it is enormous. enor-mous. Economists agrre that a human life is worth at least $.10 to the state, so that the monetary value of the lives lost alone would be about $2,5V.OtW000. Add to this the working time lost by people who were sick, and the tot.il economic h?s to the country is somewhere some-where between three and four billion. 1 r. Geit-r cites these fi cures to show that it will pnv the taxpayers to let cotmre.s spend some of their money preparing pre-paring to prevent a recurrence of the flu. This loss of time and man power, he Mvs, is not really half o Import art as the impairment of the country's health the long-lingering af Ur-affects of the disease. dis-ease. As -'in example of what these nmount to in one city. Dr. Geier states that the Red Cros chapter in Cincinnati Cincin-nati is spending S'OO.vmli in examining persons who have had influenza, and finding find-ing in nn enormous percentage of cases I that thev have come through the disease I with impaired or cans heart, kidney or ; limuft. It is a!?o caring for a creat many chronic invalids who wore able lo make their own living before they had the fin. ' Dr. Geier firmlv believes that the flu problem run be solved by medical science. 1 tine n fter another, mysterious diseases have appeared to lflH and baffle, and one Utrr another, they have hcn conquered. Tvphoid, yellow fever, diphtheria, tvphus thev were e;ioh at one time ns deadly and mysterious ns the flu is now. In each rase the cerm was discovered which caused the disease and then a specific was made or discovered which would kill the Kerm. Tli is same method mnst and will he applied to the flu. Many eminent scientists scien-tists are making studies of the subject. V ha t 1" needed is an nppropria tion ami authority to enable the public health service to co-ordinate all these efforts and mnl;e them into u national campaign against Hie plague. |
