GENERAL NEWS.
Dalefield cheese factory, one of the most important in the Dominion, has had to clo3o down on account of the prevailing epidemic. The dairying industry generally, it is understood, is being seriously interfered with by reason of the heavy toll taken of skilled workers by the sickness, but every effort is being made to keep it going by such lajbor as is available for both milking and factory work. The great difficulty, of course, is to provide for profitable utilisation of itlie flush of milk, which is not stopped by the influenza. In cases where it is impossible to utilise milk for making into butter or cheese (or feeding pigs), by reason of suspended manufacture, a dairy farmer suggested to the Post that the milk should be pasteurised and separated on the farm and the cream sent into the hospitals in the country and city districts for influenza patients. This would be preferable to turning the milk into the creeks or otherwise getting rid of it.
Dr. G. Metcalfe Sharp, recently of Opunake, who took charge of the Niagara as medical officer while sho was in Auckland after arrival ! with influenza, cases, and subsequently j accompanied the vessel to Sydney, where , she was quarantined, was by an Auckland Star reporter what he thought the most effective way of preventing infection. He replied: "Ponding the discovery of an anti-toxin, I would say that 2 per cent of sulphate of zinc in steam I inhalation is the best. Secondly in importance I should think the moderate use of proof spirit as a gargle is effective, and, thirdly, free ventilation is a good thing." Dr Sharp added: ,l We must not forget that alcohol is a powerful antiseptic, and that it is refrigerant, astringent, and anhydrotic- In my opinion an ounce and a-half of the proper spirit taken in teaspoon doses over a period of 24 hours, first gargled, then , swallowed, and followed by a drink of water, is a very effective means of re« ducing the possibilities of contagion. Personally, I can vouch""for that. Although exposed to infection in the confines of a ship's cabin, amongst serious pneumonic caßes, when the possibilities of infection were at the maximum, I took no other precaution than thj use of spirits, anil I have been immune from the disease. I had a similar experience in tbs summer of 1902 in the pneumonia .plague at Calcutta, and I adopted similar prophylactic measures regarding myself, with a similav Tesult. I admit that the habitual heavy drinker is the more serious case when "attacked T>y the disease than the abstainer and teetotaller, bi(t I am strongly of opinion, on my,'experience, that the abstainer is moStttwadil* susceptible to disease."
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Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1918, Page 7
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452GENERAL NEWS. Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1918, Page 7
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