LESSONS FROM CHICAGO.

Taihape Daily Times, 26 April 1919, Page 3

LESSONS FROM CHICAGO.

INFLUENCE OP PANIC.

MISCHIEVOUS "HEALTH" RULES.

Medical men in Chicago, at their own Medical Society, and in conjunction with the American Public Health Association, discussed pneumonic influenza, its causes, its development, sand its cure. They seemed to be satisfied

that there was no accredited cure by

drugs, and that until one ,was discovered, it would be better to allow nature a pretty free hand.

One of them, Dr. C. S. Nelson, writing in the "Illinois State Register," remarked very significantly—and the observation lias more than a Chicago application: — "If the laws of our State are suck that one man, who has had little, if any, experience as a practical physician, can lay down health rules that a multitude of physicians of equal, if not superior, ability, say are pernicious, it is time our laws' were revised. The rules governing our recent and present influenza epidemic are fair samples. The unnecessary publicity given to this disease, through the liberal use of printers' 'ink. which seems to be the principal asset of the present Director of Public Health — the scare headlines in the newspapers — have had effects of which any practising physician can testify.

"The groatest safeguard is the avoidance of panic. Some of the rules .'are amusing: 'Don't get excited.' 'Keep Cool,' etc. Equivalent to a man getting up in a crowded theatre and. yelling 'Fire!' and then telling the audience not to get excited. Closing of public schools, theatres, churches, business places, etc., has been an absolute failure. We have had epidemics of influenza many times before —minus panic health rules and publicity—which

ran their course, the ■same as this one must, with less serious Tesults than wc tare having this time."