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Show (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) FLU AND PNEUMONIA It has been Interesting to watch the progress physicians have made in controlling certain ailments. At one time the results obtained in the treatment of VfT appendicitis brought I ' j praise or blame td . , - the surgeon who per-formed per-formed the opera-S3S2T' opera-S3S2T' tion. The fact that V'. the patient or the f , patient's family did Z i not call the physi- .' sfV ' c'an until it was too ""CtWtff I late was never con-W con-W sjSt J sidered. eJ When it was found Dr. Barton taking iooti or a laxative during an attack of appendicitis was responsible respon-sible for many deaths, the death rate in appendicitis immediately dropped. The next step in cutting down the death rate was early operation within 36 hours from the beginning of an attack. Another dreaded acute disease-pneumonia disease-pneumonia is being fought successfully suc-cessfully by the use of the new "sulfa" drugs, as they are called. During the flu epidemic of 1918-19 physicians had no special or specific drug with which to fight pneumonia which so often followed attacks of flu. There was always the question as to which drugs or drug were most effective and whether the heart stimulant should be used early or late in the disease. During the autumn and winter of 1940 and 1941 there was a widespread wide-spread epidemic of flu, followed as before by pneumonia. By the use of the sulfa drugs, the death rate in pneumonia continued to fall despite de-spite this flu epidemic. However, physicians using these drugs in pneumonia state that "the prevention of deaths from pneumonia pneu-monia still depends much on the promptness with which' the patient calls the doctor. Statisticians point out that in 40 per cent of the fatal cases the doctor was not called until un-til the fourth day of the Illness or later, and in 12 per cent, not until the eighth day or later." A gratifying point about the new drugs is that they save such a large percentage of pneumonia patients among the young and middle-aged. In cases of very young children who did not get a "good start" in life, and in older individuals with heart, kidney, bloodvessel and chronic chest conditions, the sulfa drugs have not been so effective. The Metropolitan Information service points out, however, that too often the efforts of the physician cannot save the patient because delay in calling him has put the patient beyond help. |