The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1919-08-14
DREAD DISEASE TO COME BACK.
Influenza Epidemic Sure to Return
This Autumn.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 5.-lf you hope
to keep your health this autumn get
yourself into the pink of physical con-
dition, and take all the possible pre-
cautions to avoid infection. For the
flu is going to hit us again, and the
amount of damage it will do depends
largely upon how we'll we prepare Tor
it. This is the message OF Or. QUO
Grier. of Cincinnati, secretary OF the
American Medical Association.
Already the visitation Of the most
dramatic and destructive plague OF
modern times is beginning TO gro"
dim in the memories Of many people,
and this despite the fact that there
are reminders of it everywhere. Near
1v evervone has friend who is not
able to work as he did before ne got
the flu. Nearly everyone who mas
travelled during the past year, and in
ouired for old friends. has heard
again and again the depressing WoroS'
che died of the flu
Nearly everyone has noticed too'
the surprising number of women with
short hair. Some of these are a.
flicted with artistic inclinations put
most of them gave up their crownlng
glory reluctantly enough after having
tbe flu. Indeed, in some sections the
fin is said to have created quite a
vogue for bobbed hair.
Short hair is the least serious OF
the after affects of influenza. DOCTOR
Geiger says that it will add 40 per
cent. to the mortality rate for the
next five years. This means that 40
per cent. more people will die than
would have died had there been no
flu. They will die because this
strangely weakening disease has sap
ped their resistance to other diseases.
These fearful after affects of the
flu, even more than the number OF
lives it destroys at once, make 1t a
national calamity which we can i'll
afford to pass through again. The
country is strewn with men who
thought that they were in their
prime, and who got ever the flu only
to find that they were old and about
done; with women who can no longer
be wives or mothers since they had
the flu, and with children whose
growth has been checked. One or
two more winters with such epidem-
les. and the United States will have
suffered almost as much loss of hu-
man power as some European coun-
tries did through the war.
In support of his claim that the in
auenza epidemic will recur, Dr.. Geig-
er cites the record of the nearly allied
disease of lagrippe, which appeared
in epidemic form in 1899. 1t did not
reach it's peak until 1901, and two
years after that it recurred and de-
stroyed thousands of lives. We have
had two other epidemics of grippe or
influenza, one in 1857 and the other
in 1895, and both of these showed
the same recurrent quality.
In the fact of this literal certainty
that we will have to control influenza
again next year, we are totally unpre-
pared to do so. Medical science
knows little more about influenza to-
day than it did a, year ago when the
scourge was spreading like a"prairie
fire over all the world. For this rea-
son, the doctors are making elaborate
and extensive researches into the
cause and effect of the disease in or
der to try to be better prepared for
the next outbreak. Medical men are
hopeful of discovering specific rene
dy for the flu as was done in the
cases of yellow fever, diptheria, and
typhus fever.
Among the medical men of this
country making studies of the flu are
DR.. William H. Park, famous bacteri-
ologist and head of the bureau of lab
oratories of the department of health
in New York; Dr. John F. Anderson,
former director of the Hygiene Labo-
ratory of the federal government, and
DR.. E. L. Fisk. director Of the Life
Extension Institute.