WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 May 1919, Page 6

WHEN DOCTORS DISAGREE.

It i s proverbial that doctors i dls-t agree; but they really oughT not to do it in public, as they did at the influena conference of the "Institute of Hygiene." Faith in the healer is a good part in most cures, but what faith can we have after the extraordinary jumble of opinions expressed at thi s meeting? The. only clear fact emerging is that the learned, despite their long words, know very little about influenza, and less about "Bow to prevent or cure it. One great man believes in douches and gargles, but not the "horrible mixture? which the Local Government Board is recommending to all and sundry. But another authority (whether greater or les s we know not)* doesn't believe in the use of lotions for the nose, while another, apparently, would "bring all the prophylactics, in the Pharmacopoeia to bear on the neglcct-

ed teeth and gums of the British populace.

"Alcohol is no.good," says one theorist, "Alcohol stimulates the activities of the body in resisting disease," retorts another. "Keep fit, have a good breakfast, and go for a brisk walk after," urges a third. "No use being fit," is the 'dirge of a fourth; "fit people and yeung people arc most susceptible." Is it not obvious, as we said, that there is no real knowledge of the thing, and, therefore, no real knowledge of how to deal with the thing? The doctors are not to blame. They cant' know everything and this plague has descended on us when the brightest medical minds have been absorbed in other problems, which, to do them justice, they have tackled most successfully. But, obviously, there is a strong case for the closest research and no time should be lost in mobilising the best brain's" against a peril which bids far to equal the mortality caused by the war—." Sunday Chronicle."