Omaha daily bee., 1918-12-22
FLU EPIDEMIC
DIRECT RESULT
Of WORLD WAR
Or. jerks Not Surprised
Strange Disease Puzzles
Best Physicians; He
Calls 1t Plague.

famine and pestilence, have always
marched together" said he. y he
: history of Assyria is being repeated
in the modern world today. War
is the result of injustice and injus.
tice is error. Where you find the
greatest amount of error YOU find
the greatest amount of human suf-
iering and the whole thing is eDito-
mixed in disease.
Just as Hebraic chronicles told
the simple stories of the downfall
OF proud dynasties, in the four
words, injustice, war. disease. fam
ME, so do we read the prototypes
OF this summary in the chronicles
of today.
"Myriads of unburied dead who
starved in Poland and Armenia.
who had been cannon fodder in the
Mazurian lakes region and on the
western front in Belgium and
France, countless hordes who died
in Palestine, on the Turkish PEN
ninsula, in the Alpine mountains
and on the plains of Hungara and
Austria, in the narrow valleys of
Italy and the Balkan streams; were
left to rot, and offend heaven with
the incense Of impious corruption.
Enemies Of Living.
y "These dead were the enemies
of the living, for the\ sacrilege OF
war made each and every one of
the unburied bodies, distributed
over wide area, an incubator of the
most vicious OF disease germs. There
is no question but that these Tester
ing carcasses became the dwelling
place of the influenza germs. 1t
was on this rich feeding they at
tanned such appalling numbers, such
malignancy, such virility that the
very atmosphere of the earth was
saturated with hideous menace.
DR.. jerks believes that one rea-
son for the great mortality which
has attended the disease is the fact
that the common physique of the
world has been drained as the bod
les of individuals have become ex-
hausted by the stress of terror,
dread and the intense emotionalism
to which everyone has been SUBJ
Jected during the four years OF
war;
Especially has this been true in
countries whose populations are OF
emotional temperament. He also
believes that another cause of the
high mortality has been because of
the malnutrition due to famine and
near famine in Europe, or volun-
tary reduction in diet, such as oc-
Cured in America.
Never before in the history OF
the world, he believes, were indi-
viduals so low i'll vitality as they
now are Their bodies cannot re-
.,sist the encroachment of disease or
Tits ravages. as they could in normal
times.
While the effects of these condi-
tons can be traced to psychology
cal forces. DR.. jerks contends. the
conditions that brought them about
were the results of materlalism
that began its destructive effects
on human minds and bodies during
the mid-Victorian era, when< Hux-
ley, Darwin and Spencer were de-
stroying the basis of Christian faith
by their cold, material logic.
1t is DR.. jerks opinion that the
logic of these English thinkers was
fundamentally the idea back of the
German "weltgeist", the right of the
Teuton to rule and dominate the
world by the element of force, as,
incarnated in the doctrine of the
survival of the fittest.
War Has Its Rewards.
Every war brings its revival in
spirituality and every great crisis
is step upward in the progress of
evolution, thinks DR.. jerks.
A review of the worlds history
slows that human progress is
series of rebirths following the trav-
all of great wars, pestilences and
famines.
II do not believe this war is Ar
mageddon and the dawning of the
millepium," he says, "but it cerainly
is step toward the attainment OF
the freedom which, Christ prophe-
sled when He said: 'Ye shall know
the truth and the truth shall make
you free. The altruism and the sac-
Iificcs that all of the allied powers
have shown in their defense OF
truth as exemplifed in the Sermon
on the Mount, the greatest message
of Justice that has ever been enunci-
ated. shows that the world is ap-
preaching the roads spoken of by
Christ when He said: They shall
come from the north. east, west and
south and shall sit down with Abra-
ham and Isaac in the temple.
"This is the prophecy of that
great mid-Victorian genius, Alfred
Lord Tennyson, contemporary OF
Huxley, Spencer and Darwin, who
the league of the nations
and the establishment of the parlia-
ment of man, and whose sublime
faith in Gods fatherhood was voiced
when, at the age of 80 years. he
wrote Crossing the Bar.
All for One Cause.
DR.. Jenks says the war will have
the effect Of broadening the
churches and making them stand
more effectively for human justice.
II could not help but feel" said he,
"the night that ! sat at war work
meeting with a Catholic archbishop
AT nv right and Jewish rabbi at
INV left that we were all just as en-
thusia site workers in common
cause We were all opponents OF
the gospel of clean bodies and clean
minds. We were all DESTROYS that
our boys should come home from
camp, trench and battlefield SO clean
and unspotted in body and mind
thew could kiss their mothers with
out shame. =.