Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1919. TREATMENT OF INFLUENZA.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 1938, 11 February 1919, Page 2

Manawatu Herald TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1919. TREATMENT OF INFLUENZA.

THE most diM-oimcrting feature about influenza is that the medical profession has not yel found any way of subduing it, as is quite apparent from a memorandum of Ihe Royal College of Physicians, which is published in a." recent number of the Lancet, Here-are some of the confessions of Ibis document : No drug has as yet been proved to have any specific inllucnce as a preventive of influenza.- No drug has as yet been proved to have any specific curative effect on influenza, 1 hough many are useful in guiding its course and mitigating its symptom's. Since we are uncertain of the primary cause of influenza no form of: inoculation can be guaranteed to protect against the disease itself. From what we know as to the lack of enduring protection after an attack, it might in any ease be assumed that no vaccine could protect for more Ilian a short period. But the chief dangers of influenza lie in its complications, and it is probable that much may be done In mitigate the severity of the affection and to diminish its mortality by raising the resistance of the body against the chief secondary infecting agents. No vaccines should lie administered except under competent medical advice. Finally the only advice on which the Royal College of Physicians professes to offer with complete confidence is that the patient should at once go to bed and summon his medical attendant.