BE WARNED!

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4588, 20 July 1923, Page 2

BE WARNED!

MENACE OF INFLUENZA. SOME PRECAUTIONARY HINTS. Mind your heart. Take hot drinks. Avoid spirits. Get between warm blankets. ' Go on low diet. t Don’t fight, or it may be your last. Influenza has again become epidemic. It is not pneumonic, and care and commonsense only are required of patients. There is only one treatment, and that is rest in bed. Drugs may relieve such symptoms as headache or sore throat; to defeat the main infection the human bod ’ must work its own cure. Most pf the deaths ascribed to influenza are cases in which the heart has failed from exhaustion. The patient was on his feet as soon as the fever subsided, and the heart, muscle, poisoned by the toxins of the infection, w-.s unable to withstand the strain. The actual fever period of influenza only lasts from three to six days, but the body is left in a state of enfeeblement out of all proportion t,o the infection. The very greatest care should be exercised, especially by those in middle life, in resuming the activities of daily life after an acute attack.

SYMPTOMS AND TREATMENT. “Go slow” seems, jthen, to be' the correct motto for the flu. victim ; if. it were acted on in every case the mortality would be greatly lessened. The onset of the present type if epidemic is rapid. Usually within 24 hours the symptoms rise to a fnaxiHigh temperature, rapid bounding pulse, intense headache, running at the eyes and nose, sore throat, and very often a severe gastritis with nausea, are the usual signs of infection ; generally followed by a heavy racking cough as the bronchi get infected Jfrom above. Pains in the muscles of the' arm'?, back, and ‘legs follow, and there is general malaise and prostration, GO TO BED. The sufferer should at once go home to bed, keep warm, avoid any but light diet, and treat the painful symptoms with small doses of aspirin. Large quantities of alcoholic beverages, in special, should be avoided, as they are not stimulant, but. actually depressant, to the heart. Violent laxatives should be avoided, for the same reason. Quinine is of doubtful use ; in fact, the less drugs taken the better. In three days’ time, as a rule, the fever drops, and the patient feels that he has taken a turn toward recovery. This is the danger-point. A chill may bring pneumonia;, an extra strain, heart , failure. The patient should treat himself as if he has risen from a six weeks’ spell in bed instead of a “rest” for a few days. If t.his advice were always followed there would be fewer “complications” in convalescent cases of the,’flu. *Flu. is a fighter it is no good standing up to and defying on your feet—the end of that argument is similar to the remit of Don Quixote’s figbt with the windmill, and it. may not inconceivably be your last. An so—go slow 1