Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 265, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 November 1919 — “Flu” Is Coming Back This Year, Warning of Surgeon General [ARTICLE]

“Flu” Is Coming Back This Year, Warning of Surgeon General

“Will the ‘flu* come back this year?” This question, being asked by thousands of scientists and minions of laymen, is dismissed by Surgeon General Blue of the public health service in an official bulletin, in which it is said that the plague probably will 'appear but Tiot be as severe as last winter. “Probably,-but by no means certainly, there will be a recurrence of the influenza epidemic this year,” says General Blue. “Indications are that, should it occur, it will not be as severe as the pandemic of the previous winter. City officials, state and city boards of health should be prepared for a recurrence. The fact that a previous attack brings immunity in a certain percentage of cases should allay fear on the part of those afflicted in last year’s epidemic. ~~ “Influenza is spread by direct and indirect contact. It is not yet certain that the germ has been isolated or discovered, and there is yet no positive preventive, except the* enforcement of rigid rules of sanitation and the avoidance of personal contact. “We may expect at least local recurrences in the near futurfe, with an increase over the normal mortality from pneumonia for perhaps several years, and certainly we should be, as far as possible, prepared to meet them by previous organization of forces and measures for attempted prevention, treatment and scientific investigation. “There should be no repetition of the extensive suffering and distress which accompanied lastjeaEs pandemic. The most promising way is ‘preparedness.’ And now is the time to prepare. “No mention has been made of a cure. So far as the most careful scientific investigations have been able to determine, none has been discovered, and suggested remedies which gave most encouragement are even now in their experimental stage. i “Evidence collected during last winter’s pandemic points strongly to infectedmating and drinking utensils, especially in places where food and drink are sold to the public, as being one of the modes of transmission of this disease.” .. v-