"INFLUENZA."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 282, 8 June 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

"INFLUENZA."

WANTED—A BETTER WORD. By A CONVALESCENT In the London " Daily Mail." \\ lien influenza made it* first great invasion of this country (in 1891) the doctors were too astounded at its malignance, too overworked with their patients, to think of a properly frightful name for the new plague. So it was called "influenza," just like the majority of dogs are called " Bob," to save the trouble of invention.

Tho word "influenza" about as much describes the horriMe plague it names as tho gentle word Mesopotamia describes tho most horrible country on earth. It is a hacked-out word. Its coinage is debased; everyone who has an ordinary cold in the head calls it

"influenza"; everyone who wants a day off from work snatches ;'. telegraph ionn and writes, "Sorry unable to como oll'k'o influenza."

Jt is 'up to" the doctors to invent a new name for the real horror and learo tho word "influenza" for the people with a cold in the head or an invitation for a day's out ng. Nothing mortifies him so much a-s to 'have to write that futile telegram to his place of employment, "Laid up with influenza." He knows the smile with which it will bo rtco'ved, the shrug of the shoulders; the remark, "Hallo, Jones bos taken up golt again." Every doctor has known patients, suffering from their twentieth or thirtieth attack of influenza (each tresh attack makes you more vulnerable to the next attack), who lii.vo implored him to i.-sue a certificate or bulletin that they are suffering from something else that will gain them human sympathy.

The doctors use toxribo and nerveshaking technical words for the most trivial ailments. They call an insignificant little swelling of the inner evelid a ''meibonian cyst''; "adiposis dolorosa" is the doctors' name for corpulence; "•ankyloblepharon"' i< another slight eye trouble; '•amblyopia" is dimnoss of vision ; "alopecia senilis" is baldness; "erythema pernio"' is chilblains; and tho d-re word* "nasopharyngitis"' means a common or garden'cold 1 But my c'.vn doctor cenfes-od that the profession has no name for influenza. "What on earth do you call it, then? - ' I demanded. "Oh, just 'influenza.' "

ho said. "Can't you invent a decent thrilling name for it that I cart wire to the office!'" 1 implored. "I've had two weeks already of it last December. Cannot you help me?'' "No, I cannot," he snapped. "And you had bt?tter lie still, and keep quiet, and stop worrying. Your pube is 12"), your temperature is 103, your heart i.s tricky, those pains in your limbs are not far from rheumatic fever, it's touch and go whether you h?ve pneumonia, and your mind is clouded. It's just ordinary in-fluenza-1 can't say mure thairthat."' "Just ordinary influenza!" The plague that makes a slippered pantaloon of a strong man in three day. that makes tobacco taste like the fumes of Tophet. that gives you every acKe and pain thta h known, that makes you more despondent than tho Emperor of Austria, that turns your brain into pulp, your backbone into a stiik of cooked asparagus, your legs into tape, and your feet into lead; tho plague that is awful while you are laid up ill. but a hundred times more awful when you are "getting better," tho plague convalescence is a fresh and worse distemper! " Influenza"' c?nnot the doctors think of something stronger and more "frightful" than that simpering word? Let me coin one for them --"l'tterslumpitis Hornbilis Morlntus Superbus," Tho office might be impressed with that.